Apptronik’s humanoid robots take the first steps toward building themselves | TechCrunch

Apptronik, an Austin-based maker of humanoid robots, on Tuesday announced a new pilot partnership with American supply chain/manufacturing stalwart, Jabil. The deal arrives two weeks after Apptronik announced a $350 million Series A financing round aimed at scaling up production of its Apollo robot.

The Jabil deal is the second major pilot announced by Apptronik. It follows a March 2024 partnership that put Apollo to work on the Mercedes-Benz manufacturing floor. While the company tells TechCrunch that its partnership with the automaker is ongoing, it has yet to graduate beyond the pilot stage.

In addition to test running the humanoid robot on its factory floor, this new deal also finds Florida-based Jabil and Apptronik becoming manufacturing partners. Once Apollo is determined to be commercially viable, Jabil will begin producing the robot in its own factories. This means that should everything go according to plan, the humanoid robot will eventually be put to work building itself.

Given the humanoid industry’s focus on manufacturing, such deals seem like an inevitability. The prospect of humanoids building humanoids is still a ways off for Apptronik, however. The robotics startup recently told TechCrunch that it is targeting 2026 to begin manufacturing commercial units.

For the time being, the Jabil deal will find an undisclosed number of Apollo systems performing a range of “simple, repetitive intralogistics and manufacturing tasks,” including things like sorting and transporting parts. The real-world validation is a key step toward scaling the robot for manufacturing. The better Apollo performs on the Jabil factory floor, the closer it becomes to slotting into a production line that will eventually include Apollo itself.

Apptronik is one of a number of companies building humanoid robots for industrial applications, including Agility, Boston Dynamics, Figure, and Tesla. Of these, only Agility has announced that its robots have been deployed beyond an initial pilot phase.

Competition may be stiff for the nascent category, but Apptronik has a number of elements working in its favor. In addition to hundreds of millions in funding, the University of Texas spinoff has a decade of experience working on humanoids, including NASA’s Valkyrie robot. Last December, Apptronik announced a partnership with Google DeepMind to develop AI for its humanoid systems.