The humanoid robotics market is flush with investment capital at present. Last week, AI2 Robotics, a Shenzhen-based startup that produces wheeled humanoid robots, secured roughly $735 million at a valuation nearing $3 billion. Earlier this year, Apptronik, an Austin-based producer of humanoid robots for manufacturing and logistics, finalized a $935 million funding round that valued the firm above $5.5 billion. Last fall, Figure AI, a San Jose-based startup working on general-purpose humanoid robots, self-reported closing $1 billion in Series C funding at a striking $39 billion valuation.

By comparison, Peggy Johnson, CEO of Agility Robotics, stays notably restrained. We spoke by phone last week, right after the company revealed plans to go public through a merger with Michael Klein's Churchill Capital Corp XI, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. The transaction values Agility at about $2.5 billion and is projected to bring in more than $620 million in gross proceeds, the largest capital raise in humanoid robotics history. It has not closed yet; the merger still requires shareholder approval and SEC review, and is slated for completion later this year.

Agility was founded in 2015 as a spinoff from Oregon State University. Based in Salem, Oregon, the company produces bipedal humanoid robots built for warehouse and factory work. Its SPAC approach stands out for several reasons. It would position Agility as the first pure-play humanoid robotics company to list on public markets, offering retail investors direct access to a sector previously limited mostly to well-funded VC funds. It also provides an uncommon look at the finances of a business in a field where most rivals keep their figures and technology status closely held.

Johnson - formerly executive vice president of business development at Microsoft, where she helped orchestrate the $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn, and later CEO of Magic Leap, the once-hyped augmented reality headset maker - stayed measured throughout our discussion. She declined to provide forward-looking financial guidance, declined to reveal the bill of materials for Agility's flagship robot Digit, and politely deflected questions that turned speculative.

Asked why Agility is pursuing a public listing via a SPAC instead of another private round - a path that bypasses the roadshow and pricing scrutiny of a traditional IPO - Johnson said much of it comes down to the first-mover advantage the company gains as the first of its kind to reach public markets. For investors seeking shares in a high-profile robotics firm, Agility represents "an acceleration story and a timing story," she said. The proceeds will also support scaling production at its 70,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Salem, Oregon, and meeting an existing backlog of customer orders.

As for the checkered history of SPACs - many firms that listed that way in 2021 faded or now trade well below their offering price - Johnson remained unconcerned. "If we just keep our head down, keep delivering customer by customer, robot by robot, we hopefully won't experience the same volatility," she said. "Our biggest competitor right now is just us. How quickly we can execute, how quickly we can continue to add new skills."

The pipeline extends well past pilots, Johnson noted, citing more than $300 million in committed, multi-year revenue that covers roughly 1,000 robots under a robots-as-a-service model where customers pay a monthly fee instead of buying the units outright. "Everybody on our list right now is already vetted, and they have deployment plans behind their proof of concepts," Johnson said. Customers include GXO Logistics, Amazon, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, Schaeffler, and Mercado Libre.

Digit itself is a purposefully straightforward piece of hardware. It stands about 5'9", weighs around 160 pounds, and is built to perform one task exceptionally well: moving heavy objects in spaces designed for humans. Its most notable trait is a set of reverse-bend knees - they have been dubbed "bird legs" - that let it reach from floor level to overhead shelving without the knees hitting warehouse racking. (Agility's founders, Johnson explained, were not focused on biomimicry for its own sake.) The robot's hands - two thumbs and two fingers - are likewise task-specific; they are optimized for gripping heavy plastic totes, even as their contents shift during movement.

Johnson said Agility is "LLM-agnostic," using models including Claude and Gemini to manage what she calls the semantic layer - converting high-level instructions into robot actions. She described a recent test in which engineers scattered various types of trash on the floor and instructed Digit simply to "clean up this mess." The robot evaluated, sorted, and disposed of everything correctly, including recognizing bubble wrap as non-recyclable.

Of course, it is the physical layer - the mechanics of balance, locomotion, and manipulation - that Agility views as its main proprietary edge, developed over more than a decade of real-world use. "The LLMs had the entire internet to train on," she said. "When you think about the physical AI of humanoids - that doesn't quite exist yet." At most companies, anyway. Johnson believes Agility stands apart: "We may have the largest data lake of actual operating robotics data in real-world environments."

Beyond raw data, Johnson said, safety is where the gap between Agility and its rivals is widest and most significant. While competitor firms demonstrate their robots in lab settings and staged videos, Agility has had to satisfy real industrial safety certification standards to operate inside customer sites. "You can't build your robot and then make it safe," she said. "That's a redesign. You have to have all of the safety certified - the electrical system, all of the parts, and the software to support all of that." (It is not a minor issue given that humans are often nearby. Back in November, Figure AI's former head of product safety sued the company, claiming he was dismissed after raising concerns that its robots could fracture a human skull. Figure has disputed the allegations.)

As for the home, Johnson expects humanoids will arrive there eventually, but she said not to anticipate them delivering breakfast in bed anytime soon. It will be "10-plus years," she said of the timeline, noting that warehouses and factories, despite their complexity, feature fixed aisles and predictable equipment and workflows unlike homes that are unpredictable, with dogs, babies, visitors, and items left in unexpected spots.

"At least roads have some discipline to them," Johnson added, likening the challenge to that of autonomous vehicles. "Most of the areas that humanoids will be operating in don't."

Agility is not excluding the home market. Johnson said the company will enter it when it makes sense. For now, though, it remains sharply focused on the warehouse sector, given the rising numbers of retiring workers and younger workers unwilling to take physically demanding roles. "There's something like over a million jobs in the US today in these areas that are unfilled," she said. "They're just very, very hard to hire for."