Amazon acquires ‘approachable’ humanoid maker Fauna Robotics

Amazon bought Fauna RoboticsThe company announced Tuesday that it is launching . Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

“We’re excited about Fauna’s vision to build capable, safe and fun robots for everyone,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC. “With Amazon’s robotics expertise and our decades of experience gaining customer trust in the home through our retail and appliance businesses, we look forward to exploring new ways to make our customers’ lives better and easier.”

Bloomberg It was the first company to announce the news about the acquisition.

Fauna Robotics was founded in 2024 by a legacy company. Meta And Google engineers. Earlier this year, the New York-based company started Sprout, a $50,000, 3-foot, 6-inch-tall, 50-pound bipedal robot, is designed to be “truly accessible” as well as “approachable and human-friendly” for software developers.

At the time of registration the company Disney and Hyundai’s Boston Dynamics are among the first customers.

About 50 of Fauna’s employees will join Amazon in New York, the company said. Inside a LinkedIn postFauna co-founder and CEO Rob Cochran said he was “incredibly excited” for Fauna to join Amazon.

“We are excited about what joining the Amazon team means for our future,” Cochran wrote. “Going forward, we will proudly operate as Fauna Robotics, an Amazon company.”

Amazon has been investing in robotics for more than a decade, particularly for applications in warehouse operations. acquired Kiva Systems The division of this company, which formed the basis of Amazon Robotics for $775 million in 2012, focused on warehouse automation.

The company has turned to mergers and acquisitions to strengthen its robotics expertise. Amazon said last week it was acquiring Rivr, a Swiss robotics company that develops machines for “door-to-door delivery.”

Amazon said it hopes to leverage its knowledge of robotics, as well as its long history in retail and devices, to better understand the potential of personal robots to make customers’ lives better and easier.

The company has experimented with home robots before. In 2021, Amazon launched a squat, roving personal robot called Astro. Its price is $1,600, but the device is available for purchase by invitation only.

Amazon is entering the increasingly crowded humanoid robot market by acquiring Fauna. Tesla’s It is developing a humanoid robot called Optimus and plans to produce them at its Fremont factory in California.

In January, CEO Elon Musk said the company would convert former production lines of its flagship Model S and X vehicles into “an Optimus factory” with a goal of “having 1 million units a year.”

Other humanoid competitors include California-based 1X, Figure AI, Apptronik, Agility Robotics and China-based Unitree.

— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.