In September 2025, 1X Technologies entered talks with investors and employees about raising up to $1 billion in new funding at a targeted valuation of at least $10 billion, more than 12x its January 2024 valuation.

In March 2023, the company raised $23.5 million in a Series A2 round led by OpenAI Startup Fund, with Tiger Global also participating. Earlier funding rounds included investments from Norwegian firms Nistad Group, Sandwater, and Skagerak Capital.

1X Technologies raised $100 million in Series B funding in January 2024. EQT Ventures led the round, with participation from Samsung NEXT, OpenAI Startup Fund, and Tiger Global.

Total funding to date amounts to approximately $136.5 million across all rounds. In July 2025, the company relocated its global headquarters from Norway to Palo Alto to leverage Silicon Valley talent and investor networks, while continuing manufacturing operations in Norway.

1X Technologies builds two humanoid robots designed to operate alongside humans in various environments.

EVE is a 6-foot-tall, 183-pound wheeled humanoid robot that incorporates a self-balancing two-wheel base and 25 degrees of freedom across its arms and neck. It is designed for industrial and institutional tasks, including nighttime security patrols, light logistics, and hospital supply runs. Security operators can manage multiple EVE units via a browser dashboard, which provides live 360-degree video feeds and allows for direct control when necessary.

NEO Gamma is a fully bipedal home robot, standing 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighing 66 pounds. It features a soft 3D-knit exterior, walks with a human-like gait, and can squat, sit, and manipulate objects using five-fingered hands. LED ear rings and an onboard speaker array enable non-verbal feedback and conversational interaction. Current task speeds require approximately 2 minutes to fold a sweater or 5 minutes to load three dishes, with near-term operation largely via vetted teleoperators using VR and app-scheduled sessions. NEO is available for purchase at $20,000 (with delivery expected in late 2026) or via a $499/month rental plan (six-month minimum), with early adopter preorders open as of late 2025. In a separate enterprise channel, 1X signed a deal with EQT to deploy up to 10,000 NEO robots across EQT's 300+ portfolio companies between 2026 and 2030.

Both robots operate on Redwood, 1X's proprietary vision-language transformer, which processes input from stereo depth cameras, microphone arrays, and tactile joint sensors. The AI system converts high-level decisions into precise joint movements through a 100Hz whole-body controller. Complementing Redwood, 1X's 1XWM world model — a 14-billion-parameter video-pretrained system — maps text plus a starting frame into predicted future video frames, then uses an inverse dynamics model trained on approximately 400 hours of robot data to convert those imagined futures into executable action trajectories. This enables NEO to simulate possible futures, evaluate alternative action sequences, and learn from virtual failures before real-world execution.

The robots are powered by proprietary Revo1 quasi-direct-drive motors with cable transmissions instead of gears, allowing for low-friction movement and safe interaction during human contact. Human operators can train new behaviors by using VR headsets and haptic gloves to demonstrate tasks through the robot's cameras. These demonstrations are then used to fine-tune the AI models.

1X Technologies operates as a vertically integrated robotics company combining proprietary hardware with AI software. Its business model includes a B2B approach targeting enterprise customers and a B2C strategy for home robots.

The company manufactures its robots in-house, utilizing custom actuators and AI systems. This approach allows control over the entire stack, from mechanical design to behavior learning. Vertical integration facilitates faster iteration between hardware and software as AI models improve through real-world deployment data. Proprietary Revo1 brushless motors, built in-house rather than sourced from Chinese suppliers, provide a cost and safety differentiation that management views as a structural hedge against Chinese component pricing pressure.

Revenue is generated through robot sales and rental subscriptions, following a hardware-plus-software model. The EQT enterprise deployment deal — up to 10,000 NEO units across 300+ portfolio companies from 2026 to 2030 — reflects a dual go-to-market strategy in which EQT functions as both investor and scaled commercial channel. In the consumer segment, the company sells home robots directly and offers a subscription rental tier, with ongoing software updates delivered over-the-air.

The business model relies on continuous learning from deployed robots. Teleoperation is treated as a data collection bootstrap — analogous to human labeling for large language models — rather than a permanent operating dependency. Expert demonstrations feed the 1XWM world model, creating a feedback loop where increased deployments yield richer training data, enabling more autonomous operation over time and reducing the per-unit cost of human oversight.

Manufacturing is based in Norway, with the Revo1 motor program providing cost advantages over competitors dependent on external suppliers. The capital-intensive nature of robotics necessitates substantial upfront investment to achieve economies of scale.

The humanoid robotics industry has attracted significant venture and corporate investment, driving competition across varying strategic approaches and form factors.

Tesla operates in this category with its Optimus robot, with over 1,000 units deployed in its own factories. The company utilizes its manufacturing expertise and data collection capabilities, though it faces production challenges including actuator overheating and drivetrain durability issues.

Figure AI has raised over $2.5 billion at a reported $39 billion valuation and is the most commercially advanced US humanoid company, with 40 Figure 03 robots deployed at BMW's Spartanburg plant and reported discussions with UPS for logistics applications. Figure's Helix vision-language-action platform runs entirely on embedded onboard GPUs and uses fleet learning from industrial deployments as its primary training data engine, with a consumer home timeline that remains aspirational.

Agility Robotics has launched a 70,000-square-foot manufacturing facility with an annual capacity of 10,000 units for its Digit robot, with pilot programs at Amazon and GXO. Apptronik closed a $403 million Series A and is piloting its Apollo robot at Mercedes-Benz and GXO Logistics.

Sunday Robotics raised a $200 million Series B and is developing Memo, a wheeled robot with a telescoping spine and 3-finger grippers targeting a sub-$10,000 price point. Sunday trains its ACT-1 foundation model exclusively on human demonstrations captured via distributed Skill Capture Gloves — with no teleoperation robot data — generating approximately 10 million behavioral trajectories across 1,000+ households, and is targeting a 50-household consumer beta in late 2026.

The Bot Company, co-founded by former Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt, has raised $300 million at a $4 billion-plus valuation with no units yet shipped. The company rejects bipedal humanoids in favor of a lower-cost non-humanoid form factor, targeting 90–99% reliability on narrow, high-frequency tasks such as toy pickup rather than full-spectrum housekeeping.

Chinese companies including Galbot, Fourier Intelligence, and Unitree Robotics benefit from structural supply chain advantages in brushless motors, actuators, and magnets that can reduce component costs by 40–60% relative to Western manufacturers. Galbot has secured several thousand unit orders from tier-one industrial clients including CATL, Bosch, Toyota, BAIC, and SAIC, and raised approximately $650 million across rounds in late 2025 and March 2026 at a valuation above $2.9 billion. Unitree's G1 humanoid is priced below $16,000, and the company markets an entry-level humanoid at $13,500, setting a price benchmark that pressures Western competitors to differentiate on software and vertical integration.

The November 2025 shutdown of K-Scale Labs — a Palo Alto startup that aimed to build an open-source humanoid under $10,000 — illustrates the capital challenge facing Western competitors: the founder cited brushless DC motors being 2–3x cheaper in China as the decisive cost disadvantage.

The transition from wheeled EVE robots to fully bipedal NEO expands the addressable market into household services. NEO's ability to navigate stairs, manipulate objects, and interact conversationally enables entry into the domestic robotics market, which extends beyond industrial applications. The consumer home robotics market is at an early inflection point: only the robotic vacuum — led by iRobot's Roomba, which sold 50 million units before iRobot filed for Chapter 11 in December 2025 — has previously achieved scaled product-market fit, suggesting the general-purpose home robot category remains largely uncaptured.

The 1XWM world model and inverse dynamics model serve as the core intelligence layer for NEO, with potential to be deployed across other robotics form factors as licensable software. This approach creates recurring software revenue streams in addition to hardware sales.

Monetization of components, such as the proprietary Revo1 actuators and tendon-driven hands, could generate OEM revenue from robotics manufacturers seeking high-performance, safe actuation systems.

The EQT enterprise deployment deal — up to 10,000 NEO units across 300+ portfolio companies from 2026 to 2030 — demonstrates a B2B channel that complements direct consumer sales and provides deployment scale to accelerate world model training.

The 140-unit Everon security contract demonstrates entry into the $30 billion global security services market. EVE robots can patrol facilities during night shifts, a time when human guards are both costly and difficult to retain.

Logistics and warehousing are adjacent markets driven by e-commerce growth and labor shortages in fulfillment operations. Both EVE and NEO robots are capable of performing tasks such as inventory counting, light picking, and material transport.

Elder care and hospitality markets align with NEO's soft exterior and conversational capabilities. Aging populations in developed countries are increasing demand for assistance with daily tasks, medication reminders, and companionship services. At an estimated $10,000–$12,000 annual cost for a human housekeeper, a $20,000 robot or $499/month rental plan approaches economic justification as robot performance improves toward human equivalence.

The relocation of US headquarters supports domestic market growth, while Norwegian manufacturing facilitates European market access by avoiding import-related barriers. Japan and South Korea are priority markets due to aging populations and cultural acceptance of robotic assistance.

Government and defense applications could utilize the company's AI capabilities for specialized missions, following the precedent of other robotics companies securing military contracts for autonomous systems.

Manufacturing and cost competitiveness: Chinese robotics manufacturers benefit from 40–60% lower component costs on brushless motors, actuators, and magnets — a structural advantage that contributed to K-Scale Labs shutting down in November 2025 despite early traction. While 1X's in-house Revo1 motor program reduces dependence on Chinese suppliers, sustaining cost parity at scale against state-backed competitors with deep domestic supply chains remains an unresolved challenge.

Teleoperation dependency: NEO's near-term operation relies heavily on vetted remote teleoperators who can see into customers' homes, creating privacy concerns that 1X CEO Bernt Børnich has publicly acknowledged. The viability of the consumer model depends on whether the 1XWM world model can reduce the human-in-the-loop burden over time, or whether teleoperation remains structurally embedded in the product economics.

AI safety and liability: Deploying humanoid robots in home environments introduces liability risks if AI systems cause injury or property damage, particularly as early deployments operate below human-equivalent reliability. Uncertainty surrounding consumer safety certification processes across jurisdictions could delay deployment timelines and increase the cost of scaling beyond the current early-adopter customer base.