The verified answer
As of Oct 2026, DEPLOY verifies Pollen Robotics: 2 models, $4.5M raised. 1 source back the record.
CategoryHumanoids
Overview
French robotics company developing open-source robots for research and embodied-AI applications. Founded in 2016 as an INRIA spinout, the company created the Reachy 2 teleoperated humanoid, the low-cost Reachy Mini desktop robot, and the Microduck biped robot for reinforcement-learning research. Hugging Face acquired Pollen Robotics in April 2025 to become its robotics hardware arm.
Verified record
- Verified deployments
- None on file
- Active incidents
- None on file
Valuation of record
Company-claimedPriced roundSeed post-money
Key facts
Robot
Focus
Stage
Acquired by
Reachy 2 price
CEO
CTO
INRIA spinout
Fleet
XPRIZE
Orbita joint system
Reachy Mini price
Financial stage
Key customers
Motor supplier
Microduck price
Microduck
Hero image candidate
Data & sources
Web sources
1
1 source backing this record.View all →
Models (2)
View all models →Current platform
Microduck
A 25 cm tall biped robot with 15 motors, a camera, LiDAR, two IMUs, and an articulated grasping beak. Designed for developers and robotics enthusiasts to experiment with reinforcement learning and sim-to-real deployment. Pre-orders opened at $399 on August 27, 2026, with first deliveries targeted before Christmas 2026.
Current platform
Reachy 2
Pollen Robotics (Bordeaux, France), acquired by Hugging Face in April 2025, manufactures the Reachy 2, an open-source upper-body humanoid robot with two 7-DOF arms designed for embodied AI research, available with an optional omnidirectional mobile base equipped with RPLIDAR S2 navigation. Each arm lifts up to 3 kg; local compute runs on a SolidRun Bedrock V3000 AMD Ryzen-based unit and the robot runs models from Hugging Face's LeRobot library under an Apache 2.0 open-source license and is priced at $70,000. First-person VR teleoperation is supported natively.
Partnerships
Every company Pollen Robotics has built with, alongside the ones only announced in a press release.
Most-frequent partners
- 1Hugging Face1× joint2 total
- 2maxon group1× joint
- 3maxon Group1× joint3 total
Most recent
- Hugging Face acquires Pollen Robotics2025-04-14with Hugging Faceoperating
- with maxon Groupoperating
- Pollen Robotics x maxon group2022-06-01with maxon groupoperating
Pollen Robotics on the deployment map
View the global mapPollen Robotics has no verified deployments on the DEPLOY registry yet. Explore the deployment map by place and type.
No verified deployments for Pollen Robotics on the DEPLOY record yet. Track Pollen Robotics to know the moment the first one is verified.
Relationships
Current leadership (4)
- Matthieu Lapeyre Co-founder & CEOsecondary-verified
- Pierre Rouanet Co-founder & CTOsecondary-verified
- Antoine Pirrone R&D Engineersecondary-verified
- Augustin Crampette Mechatronics & Robotics Engineersecondary-verified
Founders (2)
- Matthieu Lapeyrecofounderno longer at company
- Pierre Rouanetcofounderno longer at company
Safety record
No incidents on record for Pollen Robotics.
Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.
Full safety record: incidents, sourcing, and exposure data →
Recent coverage
Pollen Robotics in third-party press
Peer companies
- Unitree Robotics10 models
- DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics6 models
- Dobot6 models
- AgiBot5 models
- AheadForm5 models
- Boston Dynamics5 models
Financial state
- Total funding
- $4.5M
- Reporting basis
- private_reported
- Lifecycle stage
- growth
- Counterparty risk class
- moderate
Each numeric field carries its own basis marker. Aggregators report a number; this surface preserves the source class so verification depth travels with the value.
Partnerships
3 total · 3 operating · 1 ended
Every company Pollen Robotics has built with, alongside the ones only announced in a press release.
Most recent
- Hugging Face acquires Pollen Robotics2025-04-14with Hugging Faceoperating
- with maxon Groupoperating
- Pollen Robotics x maxon group2022-06-01with maxon groupoperating
Most-frequent partners
- 1Hugging Face1× joint2 total
- 2maxon group1× joint
- 3maxon Group1× joint3 total
All 3 partnerships
open in the atlas →- manufacturing2024-04-01operating
- Pollen Robotics x maxon groupwithmaxon groupmanufacturing2022-06-01operating
- other2025-04-14concludedoperating
Funding rounds (3)
Pollen Robotics’s 3 disclosed rounds, $4M in total, oldest to newest.
- Seed2023-06-01
$2M(undisclosed) · $10M post
Investors: Bpifrance (lead), Societe Generale, BNP Paribas
- Grant (XPRIZE)2022-11-01
$2M(reported) · $10M post
Investors: X PRIZE Foundation (lead)
- Grant2018-08-01
$50,000(undisclosed) · $0M post
Investors: European Innovation Council (lead)
Timeline
Every recorded move in Pollen Robotics’s history, most recent first: funding rounds, partnerships, acquisitions, supply-chain starts, key hires, and press.
New supplierNew supplier: maxon Group
2026-08-22Supply: component from maxon Group
PartnershipHugging Face acquires Pollen Robotics
2025-04-14Hugging Face acquired Pollen Robotics in April 2025, bringing the open-source Reachy 2 humanoid robot into its portfolio. Hugging Face now sells Reachy 2 and Reachy Mini robots directly, combining its AI platform with Pollen's hardware.
PartnershipPollen Robotics x maxon (Reachy 2 actuators)
2024-04-01maxon supplies the EC45 flat motors and GPX32 gearboxes that power Pollen Robotics' patented Orbita actuator system in the Reachy 2 humanoid robot. The partnership combines maxon's precision motor expertise with Pollen's bio-inspired actuator design.
Funding roundSeed funding round
2023-06-01Seed raising $2400000
Funding roundGrant (XPRIZE) funding round
2022-11-01Grant (XPRIZE) raising $2000000
PartnershipPollen Robotics x maxon group
2022-06-01Maxon supplies EC-45 Flat and ECX22 Torque motors integrated into Pollen Robotics' patented Orbita joint system for Reachy 2. The partnership enabled Reachy to handle heavier loads for the ANA Avatar XPRIZE finals, where Pollen secured 2nd place.
Funding roundGrant funding round
2018-08-01Grant raising $50000
Recent activity
Every change to this record is dated, sourced, and independently verified where marked.
- Record createdJun 27, 2026
Added to the verified registry
Sources (1)
Common questions
What is Pollen Robotics?
What does Pollen Robotics make?
Is Pollen Robotics publicly traded?
Who competes with Pollen Robotics?
Who is the CEO of Pollen Robotics?
How can I invest in Pollen Robotics?
Where is Pollen Robotics headquartered?
How much funding has Pollen Robotics raised?
Who owns Pollen Robotics?
Where does Pollen Robotics operate robots?
Is Pollen Robotics a top robotics company?
Is Pollen Robotics safe?
Methodology: Verified · 1 source (no primary) · last reviewed 2026-08-27
Verification posture
Verified
Low confidence
Review state
Stable
Last reviewed 2026-08-27
Sources by quality tier
- 1
- model-repository
- Model repository
The framework is documented at /methodology. Corrections at /corrections. Reviewer: DEPLOY editorial team.
Methodology surface for Pollen Robotics.Peer companies
- Unitree Robotics10 models
- DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics6 models
- Dobot6 models
- AgiBot5 models
- AheadForm5 models
- Boston Dynamics5 models
In the press
Recent coverage mentioning Pollen Robotics from third-party publications. Automatically surfaced; not part of the verified registry record.
RL training environments for Microduck
Pollen Robotics has published microduck_rl on GitHub, a set of reinforcement learning training environments for Microduck, a bipedal robot about 25 cm tall weighing roughly 800 g.…
Hugging Face’s Microduck Robot Sells 10,000 Units At $399
A Viral Robot Success Story With Global Roots A fast-selling new personal robot from Hugging Face’s French subsidiary Pollen Robotics is offering a clear reminder that even the…
Hugging Face's new duck robot is selling fast. A Chinese chip powers it
The colorful "Microduck" robot from HuggingFace's French subsidiary Pollen Robotics has sold more than 10,000 units since launching on Thursday.
Hugging Face says sales for its robot ducks topped $2.6 million in 24 hours. Now there's a backlog.
The future of robotics can waddle. Hugging Face said its bot-maker, Pollen Robotics, recorded over $2.6 million in sales of Microducks in 24 hours.
Video Friday: Meet Microduck
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events…
Hugging Face’s Pollen Robotics Releases Small, Cute & Open-Source ‘Microduck’ Robot
Insider Brief Hugging Face’s Pollen Robotics has introduced Microduck, a small biped robot designed as an open development platform for experimenting with physical AI,…
Pollen Robotics’ Microduck aims to make training physical AI far less fragile and cheaper
Pollen Robotics’ Microduck is a tiny $399 biped designed to make physical AI training more accessible, letting developers experiment with new robotic behaviors on hardware that…
Hugging Face’s new robot is an adorable rollerskating duck
Hugging Face's Pollen Robotics has launched its second cute AI robot, the Microduck, a one-eyed biped standing just under 10 inches tall. It's available to preorder now for $399…
Hugging Face and Pollen Robotics open pre-orders for the $399 Microduck
If you've ever wanted a robotic duck as a companion, now's your chance.
Hugging Face offers $399 robot duck to help you quack the AI code
Microduck from Pollen Robotics runs on open source software, is just 25cm tall, and is ready to play out of the box
This duck will teach you reinforcement learning
The New Stack covers Microduck as an educational platform for reinforcement learning, with open-source SDK and RL training pipeline.
The Strategy Behind Hugging Face's Acquisition Of Pollen Robotics
Forbes analysis of Hugging Face's strategic acquisition of Pollen Robotics to enter the embodied AI hardware market.
Machine-readable surfaces
- Markdown mirror: /companies/pollen-robotics.md
- RSS feed: /companies/pollen-robotics/feed.xml
- JSON-LD: embedded in this page’s head
- REST API: /v1/companies/8c4f6593-1bb6-4935-890d-4f25281c8098
- Revision history: /companies/pollen-robotics/history
- Data documentation: /data
- Query this programmatically: Deploy MCP
Peer companies
- Unitree Robotics10 models
- DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics6 models
- Dobot6 models
- AgiBot5 models
- AheadForm5 models
- Boston Dynamics5 models
Video
Meet Reachy Mini — your first open-source AI robot. Order now: https://huggingface.co/blog/reachy-mini Reachy Mini is a compact, expressive, and fully open-source desktop robot developed by Hugging Face. It’s designed f
We’re developing 80+ emotions for Reachy Mini! 🧠💫 Captured via teleoperation using a Vive Tracker, controller, and audio recordings.
Reachy Mini is becoming your real AI companion. The Conversation App makes it able to talk fluently with you, help you with your to-do list, remind you of impor
If you have any questions, our team is here to help: 💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/HDrGY9eJHt 🐦 X (Twitter): https://x.com/pollenrobotics 💼 LinkedIn: http
🖐️ 4 fingers, 8 degrees of freedom 🔩 Dual hobby servos per finger 🦴 Rigid "bones" with a soft TPU shell 🖨️ Fully 3D printable ⚖️ Weighs 400g and costs under
We’ve mounted Amazing Hand, the open-source robotic hand by Jérémy Laville, onto Reachy 2 ✋ Early proof of concept, but already showing big potential for fine m
Reachy Mini is Hugging Face’s first open-source desktop robot, created for learning, creativity, and exploring human-robot interaction. Last month was a meaning
this is Reachy, The robot is an expressive open-source humanoid platform programmable with Python. he is particularly good at interacting with people. THANKY
Heat Index
Category contender81/100
A composite of competitive footprint, funding, press velocity, active partnerships, and supply-chain edges. Different from the Intelligence score below (which is per-form-factor productization). Non-robotics companies cap at 25.
Reality vs attention
Pollen Robotics draws attention at the 88th percentile but verifies reality at the insufficient-data level among humanoids.
6-month trend
Analysis
Meaningful press and media coverage across the period. Funding runway warrants monitoring: last known round 41 months ago.
Signal flags
Dimension breakdown
Verified signal
Attention (reach, not merit)
DEPLOY Intelligence scores are computed from verified registry data: confirmed deployments, disclosed funding rounds, regulatory filings, active job listings, video viewership, and press coverage. Confidence ratings reflect data availability. Scores update nightly.
DEPLOY Indices — verified vs claimed
Last computed: Oct 2, 2026