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| Kinisi Robotics | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Founded | January 2024 |
| Founders | Brennand Pierce (CEO), Edward Lando (Co-Founder) |
| Headquarters | New York City, USA; Bristol, UK (engineering) |
| Industry | Robotics, Embodied AI, Warehouse automation |
| Products | Wheeled humanoid robots |
| Funding | $2 million (as of 2025) |
| Website | kinisi.com |
Kinisi Robotics is a robotics company headquartered in New York City with engineering operations in Bristol, UK, that designs and deploys wheeled humanoid robots for industrial automation tasks. Founded in January 2024 by Brennand Pierce and Edward Lando, the company takes a pragmatic, deployment-first approach to humanoid robotics, focusing on "dirty, repetitive tasks" in warehousing, manufacturing, and recycling rather than general-purpose demonstrations.[1][2]
Kinisi gained industry recognition for deploying its KR1 wheeled humanoid to sort glass bottles at a UK recycling facility, marking one of the first commercial deployments of a humanoid robot in the glass recycling industry. The company's founder, Brennand Pierce, previously co-founded Bear Robotics and Robotize, where he shipped over 10,000 robots worldwide and raised more than $180 million from investors including SoftBank.[1][2][3]
Kinisi Robotics was founded in January 2024 by Brennand Pierce and Edward Lando. Pierce's path to robotics began with watching humanoid robots on television as a child, which inspired him to convert his house into a robotics laboratory. He pursued advanced education at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), studying humanoid robotics, before embarking on an entrepreneurial career in robotics.[2]
Prior to Kinisi, Pierce built an extensive track record in the commercial robotics industry. He co-founded Robotize and subsequently co-founded Bear Robotics, a restaurant robotics company that deployed autonomous serving robots in food service environments. Across these ventures, Pierce shipped over 10,000 robots worldwide and raised more than $180 million from investors, with SoftBank among the notable backers. After spending several years consulting on robotics design in adjacent markets, Pierce founded Kinisi in late 2023 (with formal launch in January 2024) to apply his operational experience to a new category of wheeled humanoid robots for industrial applications.[2][3]
Co-founder Edward Lando brings complementary experience in venture building and investing. He is the co-founder and founding investor in several companies including Misfits Market, Catalina Crunch, Goody, Zamp, Link Money, Atom Finance, and GovPredict (acquired). Lando's experience building and scaling consumer and fintech businesses provides Kinisi with strategic growth and fundraising expertise.[4]
Kinisi moved quickly from founding to functional prototype. By May 2024, just four months after launch, the company had completed the KR1 prototype with integrated agentic AI functionality. The first employees were hired in September 2024, and by May 2025, the company was conducting customer demonstrations across Europe.[2]
Pierce has articulated the company's philosophy as: "At Kinisi, we don't sell science fiction. We build robots that actually get work done." This reflects the company's emphasis on practical deployment over futuristic demonstrations.[2]
In May 2025, Kinisi won the Automate Start-Up Challenge, a competition recognizing innovative robotics companies. The company also raised $2 million in funding around this time to support its transition from prototype to commercial deployment.[5]
Kinisi achieved its first commercial deployment by placing a KR1 robot in a UK glass recycling facility in Bristol. The robot was tasked with sorting glass bottles by shape, size, and material for reuse. This deployment marked the first time the KR1 platform performed live production work inside a customer site, and it represented one of the earliest commercial deployments of a humanoid robot in the recycling industry.[1]
According to Head of Product Aaron Colfer, the process was initially slower than a human operator, but the company aimed to surpass human throughput within months. The deployment strategy reflects Kinisi's philosophy of getting into real-world environments early, prioritizing practical learning over laboratory perfection.[1]
The KR1 (also referred to as the Kinisi 01) is Kinisi's flagship wheeled humanoid robot, designed for continuous warehouse and factory operations.
| Specification | KR1 |
|---|---|
| Type | Wheeled humanoid |
| Height | 162 cm |
| Weight | 100 kg |
| Total DOF | 21 |
| Dynamic payload | 25 kg |
| Static payload | 40 kg |
| Pick-and-place capacity | 10 kg |
| Walking speed | 10.8 km/h |
| Max speed | 14.4 km/h |
| Battery | 8+ hours (hot-swappable) |
| Actuators | BLDC motors with strain wave gears |
| Structure | Aluminum, IP65 protection |
| Computing | NVIDIA Jetson (CPU/GPU) |
| Sensors | Stereo depth cameras, 180-degree LiDAR |
| Processing | Fully local (no cloud dependency) |
| Price | ~$75,000 |
The KR1 uses a wheeled base rather than bipedal legs, prioritizing travel efficiency, stability, and speed over humanlike locomotion. At 14.4 km/h top speed and 10.8 km/h operational speed, it moves significantly faster than most bipedal humanoids. The robot features IP65-rated actuators designed for harsh industrial environments, including glass recycling facilities where dust and debris are constant concerns.[1][5]
All perception and planning runs locally on an NVIDIA Jetson module, with no cloud dependency required for operation. The sensor suite includes stereo depth cameras for object recognition and classification, a 180-degree LiDAR array for spatial awareness, and SLAM integration for mapping and navigation. A reinforcement learning controller governs the robot's decision-making during manipulation and navigation tasks.[1][5]
The KR1 incorporates several design features for harsh environments. Polyurethane bands are added to joints to reduce dust ingress, the chassis is designed with minimal gaps (none exceeding 0.5 mm) to minimize particle accumulation, and the IP65-rated actuators provide protection against water and dust. These features are particularly important for the glass recycling deployment, where broken glass particles create a challenging operating environment.[1]
The KR1 uses a dual-end gripper system rather than a fully articulated hand. This design choice prioritizes reliability and speed for the specific pick-and-place tasks the robot performs in warehouse and recycling environments.[5]
Kinisi's technical approach is defined by what Pierce calls a "getting into the field early" strategy. Rather than perfecting robots in controlled laboratory environments before deployment, the company places robots in real customer sites as quickly as possible. This generates practical operational data that informs hardware and software iterations, creating a feedback loop between deployment experience and engineering improvements.[1]
The KR1's manipulation and navigation behaviors are governed by a reinforcement learning controller. This approach allows the robot to learn and adapt its strategies based on experience, improving performance over time in specific deployment environments. The controller runs entirely on the onboard NVIDIA Jetson processor, ensuring that the robot can operate independently of network connectivity.[1]
Kinisi deliberately chose a wheeled platform over bipedal legs for its first product. Pierce has argued that for warehouse and factory environments, wheels provide superior speed, stability, energy efficiency, and payload capacity compared to legs. The humanoid upper body (torso, arms, and grippers) provides the manipulation capabilities needed for pick-and-place tasks, while the wheeled base handles locomotion more efficiently than a walking gait would in structured indoor environments.[1][2]
Kinisi competes in the emerging market for industrial humanoid robots. The company differentiates itself from bipedal humanoid makers like Tesla Optimus, Figure AI, and AgiBot through its focus on wheeled platforms and immediate commercial deployment rather than bipedal research. Wheeled humanoid competitors include AgiBot's G2 Genie and several Chinese industrial humanoid platforms.
The company has also signed a pilot agreement with an unnamed major automotive manufacturer for intra-logistics applications, suggesting expansion beyond the recycling sector into automotive manufacturing.[1]