Why a SPAC for Agility makes sense

It had to happen. The Trump family is involved in a humanoid robot company which is now selling robot warfighters to the U.S. army.

Two humanoid robots nicknamed “Phantom MK-1” were deployed to Ukraine, which has been in a state of war since last February. Standing 180 cm tall and weighing 80 kg, these black-bodied robots with robust builds evoke comparisons to Batman. They were tasked with transporting supplies to high-risk war zones. The Phantom MK-1 is a military-grade humanoid developed by the U.S. startup “Foundation Future Industries.” Specializing in combat-ready humanoids, the company collaborates with the U.S. Department of Defense. Eric Trump, son of U.S. President Donald Trump, has also joined as chief strategy advisor.

Foundation Future Industries was established in San Francisco, U.S. in 2024. With the mission to create “autonomous machines that can do what humanity desires,” the company is developing industrial and military humanoids. Its flagship products include the humanoid “Phantom” and the artificial intelligence (AI) system “Cortex” that powers it. Read more here

Foundation Future Industries is the latest startup from Sankaet Pathak, founder/CEO of failed fintech startup Synapse which filed for bankruptcy in 2024 with tens of millions of dollars in consumer deposits unaccounted for. According to The Information, Pathak was attempting to raise $100M at a $1Billion valuation in 2025. Now he’s shipping humanoids to the Ukraine and testing humanoids firing mortars with the U.S. Dept of Warfare.

Meanwhile on the other side of the hype cycle, Agility Robotics is going public in a SPAC with Churchill Capital at a proposed valuation of $2.5Billion. This is a significantly different moment than the frothy peak SPAC era of 2020 and 2021 when dozens of self-driving technology companies went public in reverse mergers. That bubble burst in 2022 when rising interest rates, changing investor sentiment and regulatory scrutiny caused public valuations of these companies to plummet.

In general, going public via an IPO is only a practical option for a company with trailing annual revenue of $100M-$200M, which rules out that pathway for earlier stage companies. China’s Ubtech was able to IPO in late 2023 on the strength of a whole range of commercial offerings. Ubtech, which was founded in 2012, raised approx $1Billion in their Hong Kong stock exchange listing allowing them to fund the expansion of their robotics production towards industrial humanoid robots.

Agility Robotics has successful commercial deployments at GXO, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, Schaeffler and Mercado Libre, with more than 65,000 hours of safe and reliable operation in production environments. However Agility still required significant capital to fund the production of their next generation collaborative robots.

The Company is now preparing for the commercial launch of Digit v5, its next-generation humanoid robot designed to be the world’s first cooperatively safe humanoid. Agility has already secured more than $300 million of multi-year orders for Digit v5, subject to the realization of certain contractual milestones, with a growing pipeline of over 30 customers, reflecting growing demand from enterprises preparing to deploy humanoid robots at scale. Read more here

Agility selected the SPAC route as a fast route to public markets who are eager for access to standalone humanoid robotics companies, as well as for the $420M cash injection. The additional $200M PIPE (Private Investment in Public Equity) at $10/share includes significant investment from Foxconn. Other major Agility investors include NVIDIA, Amazon, and Softbank. It’s a smart move for one of the first movers in the U.S. humanoid landscape and shows significant traction.

The public listing is not going to be completed until Q4 but early indications are good. Churchill stock is up from $10 to $13.86 (on Friday close). Hopefully it’s not a SpaceX situation, but then, the humanoid bar is set a lot lower.

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Meanwhile in Athens, I’ve had the privilege of attending and speaking at the incredible 30th SNF Nostos celebration of philanthropy and democracy. Minas Liarokapis from Acumino and the Humanoid Olympiad curated a session on “Physical AI & Humanoids: Hype vs Reality” with Hon Weng Chong, David Cleaves, myself and Daniela Rus.

For this audience I focused on “The Five Laws of Robotics”, a workable framework for the intersection of robots and humanity, informed by the EPSRC Principles of Robotics.

Rodney Brooks spoke in the next session and was suitably sceptical about the role of hype in the current wave of humanoid companies. When he was CEO of Rethink Robotics, Brooks shipped the first commercially deployed humanoid, Baxter. He says the real point of difference between a pilot and a commercial deployment isn’t the contract, it’s whether or not you get woken at 3am to go fix your robots.

Since Rethink Robotics, Brooks has pivoted to a less humanoid form factor with the collaborative robot carts from Robust.ai.

Full recordings here.

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Antoniq Robotics from Portugal is out of stealth, building embodied AI for agriculture.

European robotics start-ups go up against Chinese heavyweights - Yahoo

Morgan Stanley doubles China humanoid robot shipment forecast as commercialization accelerates - CNBC

South Korea’s growing role in humanoid robot development - Goldman Sachs

2,000 combat robots ordered for Ukraine in Germany deal - Defence Blog

Ukraine is putting weapons stations on ground robots to make ‘small tanks’ that hunt Russia’s infiltration teams - Business Insider

Nvidia seeks to make humanoid AI robots safer around humans - Los Angeles Times

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Can this $125,000 robot be my friend - MSN

‘Digit’ maker Agility Robotics to go public in $2.5B deal — here’s what the filings say about its finances - GeekWire

Tech entrepreneurs seeking the next AI frontier are pivoting from chatbots to ‘world models’ - KRON4

Robots will replace 700,000 workers - Yahoo Finance

Robots will replace 700,000 delivery workers ‘sooner or later’, warns JD.com boss - Financial Times

Hyundai workers in South Korea vote to strike over fears of robots replacing them - Financial Times

‘Who is going to pay us when we’re replaced by robots?’ The Indian factory workers told to film themselves for AI - The Guardian

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