Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. AGIBOT just started renting humanoid robots in the UK from £1,999 a day. Customers can put one to work without buying it upfront.
Ant Group is also backing a home companion robot maker, and a Y Combinator startup wants a $7,999 robot doing laundry. Is the race now less about the best humanoid and more about who gets robots into homes and shops first?
In today's recap:
AGIBOT rents UK humanoids from £1,999 a day
Ant Group backs home robot maker Zeroth with $73.6M
Weave Robotics unveils a $7,999 home chore robot
AGIBOT
AGIBOT starts renting humanoids in the UK
Source: AGIBOT
Recaply: AGIBOT just debuted its A3 humanoid in Europe at a partner conference in London. It also launched a UK Robot-as-a-Service model, renting humanoids from £1,999 a day and quadrupeds from £899.
Key details:
AGIBOT's rental model pairs its robots with UK partners like Scancom, which handle logistics, service and technical support. It targets schools, universities, retailers and logistics firms that want robots without a big upfront investment.
A3 weighs 55kg and stands 173cm tall, with magnesium and titanium alloy reinforcement. Its dual-battery system runs up to 10 hours, and a battery swap takes 10 seconds.
One person can carry an A3, and it travels in a standard SUV, according to AGIBOT's release. It also uses UWB positioning to move in formation with other robots.
AGIBOT announced the UK launch on July 1, and its robots already appear at Smart City, a Milton Keynes retail venue. It's also expanding in Italy, Germany and Spain.
Why it matters: Buying a humanoid is a big upfront bet for a school or shop. Daily rentals let them test a robot before committing, with local partners handling delivery and support. William Shi, AGIBOT's president for EU and US markets, called the UK an important starting point for wider rollout across Europe. If renting works, it could become a common way for Chinese robot makers to enter Western markets.
ANT GROUP & ZEROTH
Ant Group leads $73.6M round in Zeroth
Source: CNBC
Recaply: Ant Group just led a 500 million yuan ($73.6M) round in Zeroth, a Chinese startup building robots for the home. Ant has now backed 12 companies in the sector in about 18 months, CNBC found.
Key details:
Zeroth plans a phased path into homes, founder Guo Renjie told CNBC. It starts with companion robots for elder care and pet care, then adds robots for children's education.
Zeroth says it has orders for more than 30,000 units, and its first-half revenue jumped 600% from a year earlier. This round brings its total funding to 1 billion yuan.
Ant set up its own humanoid robotics unit, RobbyAnt, in late 2024, IBTimes reported. Zeroth also hopes to work with Ant on a robot-friendly version of Alipay.
Zeroth, known in China as Suzhou JoyIn, was founded in late 2024. Guo plans North America and Europe sales this fall, once it clears local compliance rules.
Why it matters: Ant's deals span humanoid makers like Unitree and Galaxea plus parts and software startups, so it's betting across the supply chain. Zeroth is a bet that companion robots for elder and pet care can sell before general-purpose humanoids. China sees robots as one answer to an aging population and labor shortages. Still, the 30,000 orders are Zeroth's own claim, and real deliveries will be the test.
WEAVE ROBOTICS
Weave's $7,999 Isaac 1 folds laundry at home
Source: Weave Robotics
Recaply: Y Combinator-backed Weave Robotics just unveiled Isaac 1, a wheeled home robot that does laundry, makes beds and tidies rooms. It costs $7,999 upfront or $449 a month, well below 1X's $20,000 Neo.
Key details:
Isaac 1 works autonomously by default, and owners schedule chores on demand or ahead of time in an app. If it gets stuck, a remote human operator can take over.
Weave's launch post on X drew over 13 million views and 14,000 likes. Isaac 1 comes in five pastel colors, and preorders are open now.
Isaac 1's torso collapses when idle and extends to 5 feet 9 inches, with an 8-hour battery, Weave's product page says. Each hand has just one degree of freedom.
Weave unveiled Isaac 1 on July 1 and says first shipments begin in fall 2026. It hasn't said whether data from customers' homes trains the robot.
Why it matters: Isaac 1 skips the humanoid look and rolls on a wheeled base instead of legs. At $7,999, it's far cheaper than 1X's Neo, and Tesla hasn't priced Optimus yet. Simon Taylor of fintech firm Tempo called it a Roomba with arms. Because a remote operator can step in, buyers will want clear answers on who sees inside their homes.
NEWS
Beyond the big stories in robotics today
Proception launched ProHand 1.0, a tendon-driven robotic hand with 22 degrees of freedom and skin-like sensors, plus ProGlove for collecting human hand data. The Palo Alto startup raised $11M in seed funding led by First Round Capital.
Locus Robotics CEO Rick Faulk argued on the Automated podcast that warehouse robots may not need legs. He said Locus has done over 7 billion picks, and that data from real deployments is a big advantage in physical AI.
Japanese robot makers are betting on AI and open collaboration to win back global market share that has fallen to 40%, Nikkei Asia reported. About a third of the robots in Yaskawa Electric's new factory are AI-powered.
Dürr is building a turnkey, low-CO2 paint shop for Volkswagen Autoeuropa in Portugal, where 236,100 vehicles rolled off the line in 2024. Its DXQcontrol software will unite the new shop and two existing ones in a single SCADA system.
Carnegie Mellon researchers took their snake robots to La Guaira, Venezuela, to help search crews after the June 24 earthquakes. Professor Howie Choset led the team, whose tethered snakebots carry a camera into spaces people can't reach.
Georgia Tech researchers built Spherephones, an open-ear headset that turns nearby robot movements into changing music. Four speakers around each ear place sounds in front, behind, above and below, so workers can track robots without looking away.
Synaptics executives Satish Ganesan and Sam Toba explained on EE Times' Silicon Grapevine podcast why capacitive sensing could become the main way robot hands feel. They say real-time slip detection lets humanoids adjust their grip.
Wichita put off a decision on a second robot dog for its police SWAT unit until January, after a unanimous council vote. Its first Boston Dynamics Spot cost $340,000, arrived only in late May, and officers aren't fully trained yet.
Bangor, Maine, is deploying six rolling robots from Oregon-based Daxbot to measure its sidewalks, curbs and crosswalks for accessibility. The tracked robots should cover about 6 miles a day over five weeks, giving engineers GIS-ready data.
Sergey Levine of Physical Intelligence described the experiment that changed his thinking in a May episode of the Automated podcast. A model trained on data donated by 33 other labs beat the labs' own tuned systems by about 50% on average.
MarketScale rounded up a busy week in industrial automation. Highlights include Mantis Robotics' cage-free, dual-arm MR-X, which handles up to 70 pounds, and a $100M Boston Dynamics campus uniting three facilities.
SiliconANGLE previewed the Machina AI summit with theCUBE Research analyst Krista Case. She says industrial robotics may offer physical AI's clearest near-term path to production, since factories are structured and business problems are measurable.
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Cheers, Jason
