Agility Robotics goes public via SPAC, raises $465M
Original: Agility is the first pure humanoid robot company on the stock market. Are you buying?
Why This Matters
First humanoid robot company to list publicly sets a market benchmark for the sector.
Agility Robotics is merging with a SPAC to become the first pure-play humanoid robot company on public markets, raising $465M in combined retail and private capital as it prepares to launch Digit 5 in late 2027.
Agility Robotics is going public through a reverse merger with a SPAC, raising $465 million in new capital — a move CEO Peggy Johnson says was driven partly by $300 million in planned contracts from 30 customers for its next-generation Digit 5 robot. The Oregon State University spinout, founded in 2015, has spent years deploying its current Digit robots in industrial settings with nine customers including GXO, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, Schaeffler, and Mercado Libre. Those robots have moved over 100,000 totes at a GXO logistics facility. The financials are sobering: Agility earned just $174,000 in revenue during the first half of 2026, mostly from related parties, while posting a $362 million loss. Digit 5, which unlike its predecessor can operate safely around humans rather than in isolated work cells, is set to debut at CES 2027 with broad availability at year's end. Under Agility's robot-as-a-service model, the company claims each unit saves customers roughly $100,000 annually. Closing those 30 contracts hinges on Digit 5 hitting undisclosed benchmarks for throughput, uptime, and placement accuracy. Johnson noted the company's focus on "manual, very repetitive jobs that are hard to find humans to do" — deliberately avoiding the flashier demos favored by rivals. The IPO lands almost exactly a year after Figure AI CEO Colby Adcock predicted Agility would be "bankrupt in <12 months."