Robot model
Phantom MK1
Foundation (also Foundation Future Industries; founded 2024, headquartered in San Francisco with an office in Munich) was co-founded by CEO Sankaet Pathak, who…
- Manufacturer
- Foundation
- Form factor
- humanoid
- Maturity
- research
- Lifecycle
- active
- Website
- foundation.bot ↗
Overview
Foundation (also Foundation Future Industries; founded 2024, headquartered in San Francisco with an office in Munich) was co-founded by CEO Sankaet Pathak, who previously co-founded the fintech Synapse, which went bankrupt in 2024, along with Tribe Capital's Arjun Sethi and former Cobalt Robotics co-founder Mike LeBlanc, with Eric Trump as chief strategy adviser. Its Phantom MK1 is a general-purpose humanoid with company-stated specs of 5 feet 9 inches and 176 pounds, 19 upper-body degrees of freedom, five-fingered hands, eight cameras and no LiDAR, proprietary rolling-contact gearboxes, about 20 kg of payload, roughly 1.7 m/s, an initially tethered power setup, and a large-language-model-driven autonomy stack, at a stated price near $150,000. The company raised about $11 million in a Tribe Capital-led pre-seed for a roughly $21 million base and won a $24 million Pentagon SBIR that is explicitly a research agreement rather than a production order, and it sent two MK1 units to Ukraine in February 2026 for logistics and reconnaissance testing rather than combat. A framing correction is worth recording: the dispatch described Foundation as a manufacturing and logistics humanoid startup, but its live public posture in mid-2026 is defense and military, even as manufacturing and logistics remain the stated original target. The registry records it at research and demo maturity with elevated skepticism, because there is no verifiable customer deployment, the Ukraine testing carries no independent outcome data, and, critically, a June 2024 Foundation fundraising deck claimed General Motors would be its first customer with a roughly $300 million purchase order and factory access, a claim GM flatly denied, saying it had never invested and had no plans to. Its production targets of 40 units in 2025 scaling to 50,000 in 2027, its efficiency and fast-learning performance claims, any GM relationship, the Ukraine operational outcomes, and a $3 billion-plus valuation are all recorded as claimed-but-not-verified.
Verified vs. claimed
- Maturity stage
- research(Lab-stage only; no commercial or public deployment reported.)
- Verified deployments
- None on file
- Sources on file
- 6 sources, view all
No verified deployments on file. DEPLOY tracks independently-sourced deployment evidence separately from manufacturer capability claims.
Key facts
Height
Weight
DOF
Payload
Operating speed
Sensor suite
Price
Autonomy level
Production target
Drive type
Specs
Dof
Hands
Notes
Specs
Ai system
Height cm
Speed m s
Weight kg
Drive mode
Form Factor
Payload kg
To scale
Data & sources
Press releases
2
News coverage
2
Web sources
2
6 sources backing this record.View all →
Pricing
No verified price is on record for Phantom MK1. Physical-AI systems are often sold through enterprise contracts or operated as a service rather than at a public list price.
Phantom MK1 on the deployment map
Where Phantom MK1 is verified operating. Explore the deployment map by place and type.
Recent activity
Every change to this record is dated, sourced, and independently verified where marked.
- Price point recordedJun 15, 2026
Not announced
- Verified media addedVerifiedJun 5, 2026
Foundation Phantom walking test
- Record createdJun 3, 2026
Added to the verified registry
- Price point recordedJan 1, 2025
Not announced
Manufacturer-attributed media (1)
Manufacturer-supplied media at the model level. Not tied to an independently verified named-site deployment. Verification posture is product-showcase from the maker, distinct from the deployment-verified evidence in the section above.
Foundation footage of a walking test of its Phantom humanoid. Phantom is explicitly human-in-the-loop and teleoperated; any 'autonomous' framing is overstated.
Safety record
No incidents on record for Phantom MK1.
Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.
Sources (6)
- https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/12/robotics-startup-synapse-ceo-exaggerated-gm-claims.html
- https://thenextweb.com/news/foundation-humanoid-robot-soldiers-pentagon
- https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/30/humanoid-robots-ukraine-war-foundation-military-ai.html
- https://www.humanoidsdaily.com/news/foundation-emerges-with-phantom-humanoid-betting-on-novel-actuators-and-hybrid-ai
- https://foundation.bot/phantom
- https://foundation.bot/
Common questions
- What is Phantom MK1?
- Foundation (also Foundation Future Industries; founded 2024, headquartered in San Francisco with an office in Munich) was co-founded by CEO Sankaet Pathak, who previously co-founded the fintech Synapse, which went bankrupt in 2024, along with Tribe Capital's Arjun Sethi and former Cobalt Robotics co-founder Mike LeBlanc, with Eric Trump as chief strategy adviser. Its Phantom MK1 is a general-purpose humanoid with company-stated specs of 5 feet 9 inches and 176 pounds, 19 upper-body degrees of freedom, five-fingered hands, eight cameras and no LiDAR, proprietary rolling-contact gearboxes, about 20 kg of payload, roughly 1.7 m/s, an initially tethered power setup, and a large-language-model-driven autonomy stack, at a stated price near $150,000. The company raised about $11 million in a Tribe Capital-led pre-seed for a roughly $21 million base and won a $24 million Pentagon SBIR that is explicitly a research agreement rather than a production order, and it sent two MK1 units to Ukraine in February 2026 for logistics and reconnaissance testing rather than combat. A framing correction is worth recording: the dispatch described Foundation as a manufacturing and logistics humanoid startup, but its live public posture in mid-2026 is defense and military, even as manufacturing and logistics remain the stated original target. The registry records it at research and demo maturity with elevated skepticism, because there is no verifiable customer deployment, the Ukraine testing carries no independent outcome data, and, critically, a June 2024 Foundation fundraising deck claimed General Motors would be its first customer with a roughly $300 million purchase order and factory access, a claim GM flatly denied, saying it had never invested and had no plans to. Its production targets of 40 units in 2025 scaling to 50,000 in 2027, its efficiency and fast-learning performance claims, any GM relationship, the Ukraine operational outcomes, and a $3 billion-plus valuation are all recorded as claimed-but-not-verified.
- How much does Phantom MK1 cost?
- Phantom MK1's price is not publicly disclosed. DEPLOY has no verified price on record for Phantom MK1 from Foundation. Physical-AI systems like this are often sold through enterprise contracts or operated as a service rather than at a public list price; check the manufacturer for the latest.
- Is Phantom MK1 actually deployed in the real world?
- Phantom MK1 is at the research stage: it exists, but DEPLOY has no verified real-world deployment on record. Manufacturer capability claims should be read as claims pending independent verification.
- What are the specs of Phantom MK1?
- Phantom MK1's recorded specifications on the DEPLOY registry: Degrees of freedom: 19; Height: 176; Weight: 80; Payload: ~20. See the Specs section for the full sourced set.
- Who makes Phantom MK1?
- Phantom MK1 is made by Foundation, based in San Francisco, California, USA, founded in 2024.
- Can you buy Phantom MK1?
- Phantom MK1 is at research stage and is not yet available for sale.
- What are alternatives to Phantom MK1?
- On the DEPLOY registry, comparable humanoid robots to Phantom MK1 include Digit, Walker S2, Apollo, Unitree H2 Plus.
- How does Phantom MK1 compare to Digit?
- Phantom MK1 and Digit (Agility Robotics · 8 deployments) are both humanoid robots on the DEPLOY registry. Phantom MK1 has 0 verified deployments on record. Compare both records for specs, safety, deployments, and verified-vs-claimed autonomy.
- Is Phantom MK1 a top humanoid?
- On DEPLOY's intelligence score, which blends verified deployments, safety, adoption, media, and IP signals, Phantom MK1 ranks in roughly the top 19% of humanoid models tracked by the registry.
- What is Phantom MK1's maturity stage?
- Phantom MK1 is at the research stage on the DEPLOY maturity ladder (research, prototype, pilot, commercial, production). Research stage means active development without commercial deployments on file.
- Where is Phantom MK1 deployed?
- No verified deployments of Phantom MK1 are currently on the DEPLOY registry. DEPLOY records deployments only when verified at a named site with a primary source; absence may reflect pre-deployment, research, or manufacturer-internal use.
- Is Phantom MK1 safe?
- Phantom MK1 has no incidents on record in the DEPLOY registry. This does not constitute a safety guarantee; it reflects the incidents DEPLOY has tracked and verified to date.
Methodology: Verified · 6 sources (2 primary) · last reviewed 2026-06-28
Verification posture
Verified
High confidence
Review state
Stable
Last reviewed 2026-06-28
Maturity + lifecycle
Maturity stage: research
Lifecycle: active
Architectural position
Cohort: humanoid
Sources by quality tier
- 2
- secondary-established-publication
- Established publication
- 2
- unclassified
- Unclassified source
- 2
- primary-company-ir
- Company IR disclosure
The framework is documented at /methodology. Corrections at /corrections. Reviewer: DEPLOY editorial team.
Methodology surface for Phantom MK1.Recent coverage
Phantom MK1 in third-party press
Attention vs reality over time
Media mentions per month (area) against verified deployment events (dots). A press spike over a flat deployment line is the hype gap, drawn over time.
In the press
Recent coverage mentioning Phantom MK1 from third-party publications. Automatically surfaced; not part of the verified registry record.
Birmingham trusts launch InterSystems shared patient portal
Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health and Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trusts have launched a shared patient portal.
The foundational elements of AI architecture that IT leaders need to scale
With the rapid progress of AI capabilities and the move to agentic systems, organizations are expanding their use cases as the technology continues to grow. That constant…
Ant Group's LingBot-Vision Claims 12 World Firsts: 1.1B Parameter Model Beats 7B DINOv3
Ant Group's LingBot-Depth 2.0 spatial perception model achieves 12 world-first benchmarks, with its 1.1B parameter LingBot-Vision foundation model surpassing Meta's 7B DINOv3.
EU should think twice before weaponising its market against China
For much of the post-Cold-War era, the European Union understood economic interdependence as a source of mutual prosperity. Open markets, free trade and multilateral rules were…
In the AI era, US-China competition hinges on who can adapt faster
Power has historically been measured by indicators such as territory, population, industrial production, military capability and economic scale. Those foundations remain…
X Square Robot brings its valuation to $2.8B with four consecutive funding rounds
X Square Robots' system combines foundation models, robotics hardware, a data pipeline system, and real-world deployments. The post X Square Robot brings its valuation to $2.8B…
Russia, Hamas, and China: Three reasons Turkey shouldn’t get the F-35
After President Donald Trump said he would make Turkey’s leader “very happy,” analysts from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies warn in this op-ed that including Ankara in…
Outgoing ZIM CEO: New leader to build on strong foundation
A change of leadership at Zim Integrated Shipping Services as CEO Eli Glickman steps down after 10 years at the helm. The post Outgoing ZIM CEO: New leader to build on strong…
As Brokers Go bankrupt Transportation Collections Has Become About More Than Just Getting Paid.
When most people think about transportation collections, they picture an agency making phone calls to recover overdue freight invoices. While recovering unpaid invoices remains…
X Square Robot Closes Four Consecutive Rounds, Hits $2.8B Valuation as It Powers Physical-AI Foundation Models
X Square Robot completes four successive funding rounds culminating in a Series C, reaching $2.8 billion valuation, becoming the only embodied AI company backed by all four of…
Frimley Health achieves HIMSS EMRAM Stage 6
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust has become one of only seven NHS organisations in the UK to achieve HIMSS EMRAM Stage 6 accreditation.
Omega 365 platform selected for Frimley hospital programme
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust has selected Omega 365’s system to support its major hospital development programme.
Machine-readable surfaces
- Markdown mirror: /models/foundation-phantom.md
- JSON-LD: embedded in this page’s head
- REST API: /v1/models/906bee37-2681-4d73-bc24-960652c9a60f
- Revision history: /models/foundation-phantom/history
- Data documentation: /data
- Query this programmatically: Deploy MCP
Video
Abstract: Foundation models, such as GPT, have marked significant achievements in the fields of natural language and vision, demonstrating exceptional abilities
Hypertension affects nearly half of U.S. adults, and 10% of those cases don’t respond well to treatment. U.S. National Science Foundation-supported professor Ta
To get started with Isaac Sim and Isaac Lab, I introduced the NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute (DLI) learning path. Part 1 covers what an Embodied AI is as a moti
Hypertension affects nearly half of U.S. adults, and 10% of those cases don’t respond well to treatment. U.S. National Science Foundation-supported professor Ta
Looking to reenergize the defense industrial base and promoting "AI-proof, six-figure jobs," the DoD partnered with the former "Dirty Jobs" host for advocacy.
Hypertension affects nearly half of U.S. adults, and 10% of those cases don’t respond well to treatment. U.S. National Science Foundation-supported professor Ta
The sustained influx of fentanyl and other illicit drugs has had a profound impact on the lives of Americans. Louise Shelley, a professor emerita at George Maso
Tribute to Army Staff Sergeant Ryan Knauss, his mother creates a foundation that awards scholarships to JROTC cadets in his memory.
Head of the group behind the forthcoming Global War on Terrorism memorial says first public renderings are not the "final concept," and changes are expected.
In Alcoa, one group hung 50 6 ft flags bearing veterans’ names in a partnership with the city.
Brock White with Medora Foundation on future of Medora Kxnet.com Welcome to the KXMB/KXMC YouTube channel, your home for all news, sports, and weather in west
Veteran investor Warren Buffett has held off on his usual donation to the Gates Foundation while awaiting the outcome of a review into the foundation’s ties to
Warren Buffett has reportedly paused his annual gift to the Gates Foundation due to the Microsoft cofounder’s ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, acc
Secure information is essential in the digital exchanges of modern life. U.S. National Science Foundation-supported professor Vinod Vaikuntanathan discusses qua
Secure information is essential in the digital exchanges of modern life. U.S. National Science Foundation-supported professor Vinod Vaikuntanathan discusses qua
Secure information is essential in the digital exchanges of modern life. U.S. National Science Foundation-supported professor Vinod Vaikuntanathan discusses qua
Reality vs attention
Phantom MK1 draws attention at the 65th percentile but verifies reality at the insufficient-data level among humanoids.
Analysis
Thin deployment record; scale validation still in progress.
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: Jul 18, 2026