6 lessons I learned watching a robotics startup die from the inside - The Robot Report
Every robotics pitch deck has one. “We’re doing for robots what Tesla did for EVs.” “This is the iPhone moment for embodied AI.” At our company, the favorite was the hoverboard (平衡车).
Key takeaways
The most recent coverage shows that humanoid robots are moving from prototype to commercial deployment across several sectors. Georgia Tech researchers announced a new “thinking” technology that dramatically improves two‑legged robots’ balance and agility, a breakthrough that could make walking stability a practical feature for future humanoids. In Japan, telecom operator KDDI expanded its partnership with digital‑avatar maker Avita, providing cloud and communications infrastructure for a line of humanoid robots that KDDI hopes to trial commercially by autumn and eventually place in its retail outlets. Chinese smartphone maker Honor unveiled its first humanoid robot at Mobile World Congress 2026, positioning it as part of an “augmented human intelligence” strategy aimed at retail assistance, workplace inspection and companionship. BMW has begun deploying humanoid robots at its Leipzig plant after a successful pilot in Spartanburg, extending the use of humanoids on automotive assembly lines. Meanwhile, U.S. startup Apptronik secured a $520 million funding round that values the company at over $5 billion, underscoring investor confidence in large‑scale humanoid platforms. Agility Robotics is scaling its Digit humanoid, installing it in Toyota’s Canadian manufacturing plant to handle repetitive tasks, and Chinese firm UBTECH is expanding its Walker series in factories such as NIO’s and Geely’s, where the robots now perform quality inspections and material handling with a 99 % task‑completion rate. Collectively, these developments indicate rapid progress toward integrating humanoid robots into manufacturing, logistics, retail and consumer applications.
Every robotics pitch deck has one. “We’re doing for robots what Tesla did for EVs.” “This is the iPhone moment for embodied AI.” At our company, the favorite was the hoverboard (平衡车). Humanoid robots would follow the same cost curve as self-balancing scooters: expensive novelty → Shenzhen mass production → commodity hardware → everywhere.
A hoverboard motor just needs to spin. That’s it. A humanoid robot’s actuators need to be extraordinarily precise, explosively powerful, resistant to wear, and consistent unit to unit. One actuator slightly out of spec and the robot walks wrong, or falls. Hoverboards, smartphones, whatever analogy you pick, none of them tell you anything useful about building a humanoid. The Robot Report
6 lessons I learned watching a robotics startup die from the inside
By Rui Xu |
The K-Bot open-source humanoid robots. | Credit: K-Scale Labs
Editor’s Note: Rui Xu is the former chief operating officer of K-Scale Labs, a San Francisco-based startup that tried to build low-cost humanoid robots. The company shut down in late 2025 and recently open-sourced its intellectual property. Xu first published this article on LinkedIn. It was reprinted with his permission.
I spent a year as COO of a YC-backed robotics startup trying to build affordable humanoid robots. I was forty, had 15 years of hardware experience shipping products at Intel, Xiaomi, Lenovo, Amazon and ByteDance, and joined to run supply chain and product operations. Home News Technologies
- Batteries / Power Supplies
- Cameras / Imaging / Vision
- Controllers
- End Effectors
- Microprocessors / SoCs
- Motion Control
- Sensors
- Soft Robotics
- Software / Simulation Development
- Artificial Intelligence
- Human Robot Interaction / Haptics
- Mobility / Navigation
- Research Robots
- AGVs
- AMRs
- Consumer
- Collaborative Robots
- Drones
- Humanoids
- Industrial
- Self-Driving Vehicles
- Unmanned Maritime Systems Business
- Financial
- Investments
- Mergers & Acquisitions
- Earnings
- Markets
- Agriculture
- Healthcare
- Logistics
- Manufacturing
- Mining
- Security
- RBR50
- RBR50 Winners 2025
- RBR50 Winners 2024
- RBR50 Winners 2023
Mentioned in this article