Which humanoid startup is growing the fastest?
In our humanoid robotics market deck, you will find everything you need to understand the market
SUMMARY
AgiBot is currently the fastest-growing humanoid startup.
Its lead comes from several measures moving together. Cumulative production rose from 5,000 to 15,000 robots in roughly six months, reported annual revenue increased from more than RMB60 million to RMB1.05 billion, and independent market estimates placed it first in global shipments.
The result depends partly on definitions. AgiBot counts a broad range of humanoid and embodied robots, while Unitree says it delivered more than 5,500 pure humanoids. AgiBot leads the broader market; Unitree may lead the narrower biped-only category.
Unitree is the stronger verified business. Its IPO materials point to roughly RMB1.7 billion in 2025 revenue, more than RMB278 million in profit and a humanoid business that grew from less than 2% of sales in 2023 to more than half by 2025.
That does not make Unitree the fastest grower. AgiBot's reported revenue expanded about 17.5 times in one year, compared with roughly 4.35 times for Unitree, while its production milestones arrived only a few months apart.
Figure is the fastest-moving American manufacturer. BotQ reportedly shifted from one Figure 03 robot per day to one per hour in fewer than 120 days, but the company is still producing hundreds rather than the thousands reported by the Chinese leaders.
Agility Robotics leads a different race: useful paid work. Digit robots have accumulated more than 65,000 operating hours across nine customer facilities, including more than 100,000 tote moves at one live distribution site.
The industry's headline numbers are not cleanly comparable. A research platform, an entertainment robot and a machine integrated into a ten-hour factory shift all count as shipments, although they say very different things about commercial maturity.
Chinese startups are scaling hardware first and finding many kinds of buyers. American startups are usually taking a slower path through safety reviews, workflow integration and industrial pilots, which produces lower unit totals but deeper evidence per deployment.
AgiBot's biggest unanswered question is utilization. It has proved that it can manufacture quickly, but public evidence of sustained autonomous work still covers only a small share of its total output.
The leaderboard is therefore split. AgiBot has the fastest overall acceleration, Unitree has the strongest verified high-volume business, Figure has the quickest US production ramp, and Agility has the best industrial operating record.
The title still belongs to AgiBot because no rival has matched its combination of output growth, reported sales growth and shipment scale. The lead is real, even though the exact size of it changes with the definition of a humanoid robot.
This market map, featured in our humanoid robotics market deck, highlights top companies and startups in the humanoid robotics market
Why is it so hard to name the fastest-growing humanoid startup?
Naming the fastest-growing humanoid startup is difficult today because AgiBot, Unitree, Figure and Agility Robotics are winning four different races.
AgiBot is building the most robots. Unitree has the strongest verified revenue and profit. Figure has accelerated American production faster than any close US rival. Agility has accumulated the clearest evidence of humanoids doing paid industrial work.
Those races used to blur together because almost every humanoid was still a prototype. These days, the gaps are wide enough to change the answer. A company can ship thousands of low-cost research or display robots while another operates a few dozen expensive machines inside customer facilities. Both are growing, but they are building very different businesses.
One funding round, one factory target or one polished deployment video cannot settle the title. We need to compare completed production, delivered robots, revenue, repeat demand and real operating experience.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest humanoid robotics market report.
What should “growing fastest” mean in humanoid robotics?
For humanoid startups, growth should mean more robots reaching paying users and doing useful work, with production, revenue and repeat orders moving in the same direction.
We give the greatest weight to completed production and shipments because they show that a company can source parts, assemble machines and find buyers. Revenue comes next, especially when the figure is audited or included in a regulatory filing. Paid deployments and repeat orders show whether customers are getting enough value to keep expanding.
Funding and valuation still deserve attention. Humanoid companies need factories, actuators, training data and large engineering teams. Yet a funding round records what investors expect to happen later; it does not show how many robots are working today.
The same caution applies to announced factory capacity. A plant designed for 10,000 robots has little value in this comparison until robots start leaving it.
| Measure | What we count | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Production and shipments | Robots built and delivered | Best evidence of physical scale |
| Revenue and profit | Customer spending already recorded | Shows whether demand is commercial |
| Paid deployment | Robots operating in customer workflows | Tests usefulness outside the lab |
| Repeat orders | Customers expanding after trials | Strong evidence that the economics work |
| Funding and valuation | Capital available for future expansion | Useful context, but weaker proof of present growth |
As this chart shows, and as featured in our humanoid robotics market deck, search interest in where to buy robots has been rising steadily
Which humanoid startups are serious contenders today?
As of now, six startups belong in the serious humanoid race: AgiBot, Unitree, Figure, Agility Robotics, Apptronik and 1X.
AgiBot and Unitree dominate reported volume. Figure, Agility and Apptronik lead the better-funded American industrial group. 1X is taking a different route by selling a home robot directly to consumers.
We exclude Tesla because it is an automaker rather than a humanoid startup. Boston Dynamics belongs to Hyundai, while UBTech has been publicly listed for years. EngineAI, Galbot, Fourier Intelligence and several newer Chinese companies remain worth watching, but their public production, revenue and deployment data are still too thin to challenge the six leaders in a growth comparison.
| Startup | Main market | Freshest useful growth evidence | Main weakness in the evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| AgiBot | Industrial, commercial and research robots | Cumulative output tripled in about six months | The total covers several robot formats |
| Unitree | Research, education, commercial and industrial robots | Profitable, high-volume humanoid sales | Most humanoid sales still come from research and display buyers |
| Figure | Industrial work and future home use | More than 350 Figure 03 robots and a one-per-hour production rate | External customer fleet remains small |
| Agility Robotics | Logistics and manufacturing | 65,000 operating hours and more than $300 million in conditional orders | The large order book depends on Digit v5 milestones |
| Apptronik | Manufacturing and logistics | More than $935 million raised and a new Robot Park | No comparable production or operating total |
| 1X | Home robotics | Full-scale NEO production at a 10,000-unit annual-capacity factory | Completed consumer deliveries are not publicly disclosed |
Is AgiBot now shipping more humanoids than anyone else?
AgiBot now has the strongest independent claim to the global shipment lead, although Unitree can still make a credible case under a narrower definition.
Omdia estimated that AgiBot shipped 5,168 humanoid and embodied robots in 2025, equal to 39% of the market it measured. Unitree ranked second at roughly 4,200, while Figure and Agility were each around 150. IDC also placed AgiBot first with about 5,200 units.
The disagreement starts when we look inside those totals. IDC counted approximately 1,300 full-sized AgiBot humanoids, with the rest spread across smaller humanoids and other embodied formats. Unitree says it delivered more than 5,500 “pure humanoid” robots during the same year.
In plain English, AgiBot wins when the category includes its broader humanoid and embodied range. Unitree may lead if we count only fully bipedal machines. Two independent research firms still ranked AgiBot first, so we give it the narrow advantage rather than treating the companies' own definitions as equally strong evidence.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest humanoid robotics market report.
This chart, featured in our humanoid robotics market deck, illustrates yearly venture capital funding for humanoid robotics startups
How fast is AgiBot actually growing?
AgiBot is growing at a pace no other humanoid startup has publicly matched across both factory output and reported revenue.
AgiBot produced its 5,000th robot near the end of 2025, reached 10,000 roughly three months later and announced its 15,000th robot after another quarter. Cumulative output tripled in about six months.
The latest milestone needs one important qualification. AgiBot's own announcement says its portfolio spans humanoids, quadrupeds, dexterous systems and commercial cleaning robots. The total is broader than a count of full-sized humanoids.
Revenue has risen almost as quickly. Founder Deng Taihua said AgiBot increased annual revenue from more than RMB60 million to RMB1.05 billion. That works out to roughly 17.5 times as much revenue in one year, an increase of about 1,650%.
Private-company disclosures are less reliable than audited accounts, but these figures fit the shipment and production trend. AgiBot would have to be overstating several separate measures by a huge margin for another startup to show a steeper current curve.
| AgiBot milestone | Reported level | What we learn |
|---|---|---|
| Earlier cumulative production | 5,000 robots | AgiBot had already moved beyond prototypes |
| Roughly three months later | 10,000 robots | The next 5,000 arrived in one quarter |
| Roughly another quarter later | 15,000 robots | Cumulative output tripled in about six months |
| Annual revenue growth | RMB60 million to RMB1.05 billion | Reported sales expanded about 17.5 times |
Are AgiBot's robots doing useful work or mainly filling showrooms?
AgiBot has moved beyond showroom demos, but its verified industrial work still covers a small fraction of the robots it has produced.
The strongest example comes from Longcheer Technology's tablet factory. Eight AgiBot humanoids worked for more than 64 hours during a six-day public test, completed 64,828 production tasks and contributed to the output of 17,625 tablets. AgiBot reported a 99.99% task-success rate.
That factory run is useful evidence because it lasted several days on an active line and produced measurable throughput. The result still came from the company itself, and eight robots cannot tell us what thousands of other units are doing.
A recent UK launch showed the other side of AgiBot's business. Reporters saw smaller humanoids dancing, kicking a football and greeting visitors while staff controlled them with smartphones and game controllers. Those machines may sell well for entertainment, education or demonstrations, but they do not prove autonomous industrial labour.
AgiBot has clearly proved that it can manufacture quickly. We still need a fleet-level breakdown showing how many robots work regularly, how many rely on teleoperation and how many spend most of their time in labs, schools or commercial displays.
This chart, featured in our humanoid robotics market deck, shows how Agility Robotics is capturing share in humanoid robotics
Is Unitree actually growing faster than AgiBot?
Unitree is the stronger verified humanoid business today, yet AgiBot still has the steeper current growth curve.
Unitree reported roughly RMB1.7 billion in 2025 revenue, up 335%, and more than RMB278 million in profit. It also says it shipped over 5,500 humanoids. Few robotics startups can point to that combination of volume, revenue and positive earnings.
Humanoids have also changed the shape of Unitree. They generated less than 2% of company revenue in 2023 and more than half by 2025, according to its IPO materials. Unitree used the actuator expertise, suppliers and distribution network built through robot dogs to enter humanoids much faster than a new manufacturer normally could.
Unitree's buyers are where its case gets weaker. Around 74% of Unitree's humanoid sales came from research and education, roughly 17% from commercial display uses and about 9% from industrial applications. Unitree has built a real business, although most buyers are still purchasing development platforms or attention-grabbing machines rather than replacing factory labour.
AgiBot's reported revenue rose about 17.5 times, compared with Unitree's 4.35 times. Unitree's numbers carry more weight because they come through an IPO process, while AgiBot's come from management. Even after that discount, AgiBot's production and sales acceleration remains faster.
Unitree would win a question about the strongest verified business. For the narrower question of growth speed, AgiBot stays ahead.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest humanoid robotics market report.
Is Figure the fastest-growing American humanoid startup?
Figure is now the fastest-growing American humanoid startup by production speed, fundraising and valuation, though its delivered fleet remains far smaller than AgiBot's or Unitree's.
Figure says BotQ has produced more than 350 Figure 03 robots and increased output from one robot per day to one per hour in fewer than 120 days. That is a 24-fold rise in manufacturing throughput. The company also reported first-pass yields above 80% for complete robots and 99.3% for more than 500 battery packs, useful details that show a production line being debugged rather than a theoretical capacity target.
Investor growth has been even more dramatic. Figure raised more than $1 billion at a $39 billion post-money valuation, around fifteen times its previous $2.6 billion valuation.
The BMW work gives Figure more credibility than the factory count alone. Figure 02 robots loaded more than 90,000 parts, accumulated over 1,250 operating hours and contributed to 30,000 BMW X3 vehicles. Figure then retired that generation and lately sent Figure 03 back to BMW for new assembly and logistics work.
Figure has moved quickly from prototypes to hundreds of robots and a second BMW deployment. Still, most Figure 03 units appear to support internal development, data collection or early customer work. The company has not disclosed thousands of external deliveries or meaningful robot revenue.
Figure is moving fastest in the United States. AgiBot remains well ahead in completed output.
This chart, featured in our humanoid robotics market deck, illustrates yearly funding for humanoid robotics startups
Does Agility Robotics have the strongest commercial proof?
Agility Robotics has the best evidence today that a humanoid can earn its place in a real warehouse or factory.
Digit robots have accumulated more than 65,000 operating hours across nine customer facilities. At one Georgia distribution site, Digit moved more than 100,000 totes during live operations. Those numbers cover repetitive work inside customer workflows rather than a short stage demonstration.
Agility has also disclosed more than $300 million in multiyear orders for Digit v5 and a pipeline of over 30 potential customers. The biggest commitment covers roughly 1,000 robots under a robots-as-a-service structure.
The order book comes with conditions. Revenue depends on Agility meeting product, deployment and contractual milestones, so we cannot count the full amount as sales already earned. Digit v5 still has to move from planned fleet to reliable fleet.
Even with that caveat, Agility's evidence is unusually solid for this market. GXO, Schaeffler, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada and Mercado Libre are preparing or testing real workflows, and the operating-hour total has kept climbing.
Agility is growing more slowly in units than the Chinese leaders. Where paid industrial use carries the most weight, it is currently ahead.
Is Apptronik catching Figure and Agility?
Apptronik is catching the American leaders in capital and customer access, but it still trails them in disclosed production and operating data.
Apptronik expanded its Series A to more than $935 million, with backing from Google, Mercedes-Benz, John Deere, AT&T Ventures and Qatar Investment Authority. The company also works with Google DeepMind on robot intelligence and Jabil on manufacturing.
Its newest practical step is Robot Park, where Apollo 2 machines gather data and practise industrial tasks before the commercial fleet arrives. Mercedes-Benz and GXO have already tested earlier Apollo systems, giving Apptronik access to serious manufacturing and logistics environments.
What we still cannot find is a clear production count, a customer operating-hour total or a disclosed order book comparable with Figure or Agility. Apptronik talks openly about scaling production and deployment, but most of the measurable growth so far sits in funding, facilities and partnerships.
Apptronik could close the gap quickly once Apollo's commercial fleet starts shipping. Today, the disclosed evidence still describes preparation more than completed scale.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest humanoid robotics market report.
This chart, featured in our humanoid robotics market deck, compares the main business model options for humanoid robot manufacturers
Could 1X become the fastest-growing humanoid startup through the home?
1X has the clearest route to a sudden consumer-led surge, but current factory capacity and reservations still tell us more than completed deliveries.
The company has started full-scale NEO production at a 58,000-square-foot factory in California with more than 200 employees and capacity for 10,000 robots a year. Consumers can buy NEO for $20,000 or subscribe for $499 per month.
1X has lately shown a dedicated production line for NEO's 25-degree-of-freedom hands, including in-house motors, tendons, tactile sensing and end-of-line testing. That is a more useful manufacturing clue than another household demo because dexterous hands are among the hardest and most failure-prone parts of a humanoid.
NEO still arrives with only basic autonomy. When a task is too difficult, a remote 1X expert may supervise the robot at a scheduled time. Early customers are buying a mix of autonomous software, teleoperation and future upgrades.
The home market could create orders much faster than enterprise pilots if NEO works well enough. We have not seen a verified delivery count, cancellation rate or recurring subscription base. 1X could still surprise the market, but today it does not lead.
Are Chinese and American humanoid numbers really comparable?
Chinese and American humanoid numbers remain only partly comparable because the companies count different machines, customers and stages of deployment.
Chinese manufacturers supplied roughly 85% of global humanoid shipments in 2025, according to figures cited by Barclays and the Associated Press. Much of that volume came from lower-cost robots sold to universities, research labs, government-backed projects, entertainment operators and commercial venues.
American startups have usually concentrated on larger industrial robots placed inside factories and warehouses. Their unit totals are lower, but each deployment can involve months of integration, safety work and workflow testing.
Product definitions create another gap. AgiBot's 5,168-unit Omdia total includes full-sized humanoids, compact humanoids and wheeled embodied robots. IDC found that about 1,300 were full-sized. Unitree's competing figure of more than 5,500 covers what the company calls pure humanoids.
So a shipped robot can mean very different things. A low-cost research platform and a humanoid running ten-hour factory shifts represent different levels of commercial progress.
The definition issue does not erase China's lead. AgiBot and Unitree shipped thousands while their closest American startup rivals produced hundreds. Even after narrowing the category, Chinese hardware companies are scaling faster in volume.
This chart, featured in our humanoid robotics market deck, shows the revenue mix across customer segments in the humanoid robotics market
Which humanoid startup has the most durable growth?
Unitree has the most durable growth today, Agility Robotics has the best proof of paid industrial use, and AgiBot has the fastest acceleration.
Unitree combines high shipment volume, profit, strong gross margins and a mature supply chain. Its research-heavy customer base is a weakness, yet those customers are paying now and have helped make Unitree a standard platform in robotics labs.
Agility's installed fleet is smaller, but customers have kept its robots working for tens of thousands of hours and have signed conditional commitments for a much larger next generation. If Digit v5 meets its milestones, Agility could turn the strongest operational record into the strongest recurring-revenue business.
AgiBot carries more demand risk. Its factories are moving much faster than its public evidence of regular autonomous work. The company can still build a durable business by selling across research, entertainment, services and industry, although that would be different from the general-purpose labour story often attached to humanoids.
Figure has the capital to catch any of them and is finally producing robots by the hundreds. Its valuation already assumes a much larger business than the one visible today.
If we had to choose the strongest current company rather than the fastest curve, Unitree would be the safer pick. The title asks about speed, which keeps AgiBot in front.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest humanoid robotics market report.
Which humanoid startup is growing the fastest?
AgiBot is currently the fastest-growing humanoid startup.
As seen above, AgiBot tripled cumulative production from 5,000 to 15,000 robots in roughly six months and increased reported annual revenue from RMB60 million to RMB1.05 billion. Omdia and IDC also placed AgiBot first in global shipments, although the company's broad product mix makes the exact humanoid count debatable.
No rival currently matches that combination of absolute output and percentage growth. Unitree has better verified finances and may lead in fully bipedal shipments. Figure has the quickest American production ramp. Agility has the strongest record inside paying customer facilities. None has expanded across production, shipments and reported sales as sharply as AgiBot.
The answer could change quickly. Figure is producing at one robot per hour, 1X has opened a high-volume home-robot factory, and Agility is preparing a 1,000-robot commercial commitment. Those are credible challenges, though they still describe ramps that are beginning rather than scale already reached.
The evidence still points clearly to AgiBot as the fastest grower today. Unitree is the strongest verified high-volume business, while Agility remains the clearest leader in useful industrial deployment.
| Category | Current leader | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Fastest overall growth | AgiBot | Production, shipments and reported revenue are rising together |
| Strongest verified business | Unitree | High volume, profit and IPO-level financial disclosure |
| Fastest US production ramp | Figure | Output rose from one robot per day to one per hour |
| Best industrial proof | Agility Robotics | The deepest disclosed operating record in customer facilities |
| Biggest near-term consumer wildcard | 1X | A 10,000-unit-capacity factory aimed directly at homes |
| Best-funded challenger without a clear production total | Apptronik | A large Series A and major industrial partners |
This chart, featured in our humanoid robotics market deck, shows how factory humanoid robot technology has evolved over time
OUR METHODOLOGY
This analysis compares the fastest-growing humanoid startups across completed production, shipments, revenue, profit, paid deployments, repeat demand and operating experience. We give more weight to progress already achieved than to announced capacity, funding or valuation.
Production and shipment figures are assessed alongside robot type and customer use. A full-sized industrial humanoid, a compact research platform, a wheeled embodied robot and an entertainment machine all count as commercial activity, but they do not provide the same evidence of operational maturity.
We compare both the rate of growth and the scale behind it. A large percentage increase from a tiny base receives less weight than rapid expansion that has already reached hundreds or thousands of robots. Recorded revenue, profit and customer operating hours help test whether manufacturing growth is translating into a real business.
Source quality also affects the ranking. Regulatory and transaction documents, independent shipment estimates and measured customer deployments carry the most weight. Precise company disclosures are included when they can be checked against production milestones, customer results or other published figures.
No single announcement decides the result. The final ranking looks for several recent measures moving in the same direction. That is why AgiBot leads on overall acceleration, while Unitree leads on verified financial strength, Figure on the American production ramp and Agility Robotics on sustained industrial use.
Key sources include Omdia and IDC shipment estimates; AgiBot's 15,000-unit milestone, its 10,000-unit milestone, its 5,000th robot disclosure and the Longcheer factory test; Unitree's official 2025 sales clarification; Figure's production-ramp update, its BMW operating results and the Figure 03 return to BMW; Agility Robotics' operating-hour and order disclosures; Apptronik's expanded Series A and Robot Park update; and 1X's NEO factory disclosure.
In our humanoid robotics market deck, we identify pain points entrepreneurs should prioritize
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