What is Pollen Robotics's flagship humanoid robot?

Pollen Robotics's flagship humanoid robot is Reachy 2.

What is Pollen Robotics's current valuation?

Robotico does not currently list a verified private valuation for Pollen Robotics.

When was Pollen Robotics founded?

Pollen Robotics was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Bordeaux, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France.

Pollen Robotics

Private

French open source robotics startup founded in 2016 in Bordeaux by former Inria researchers. Created the Reachy humanoid robot platform used at Cornell and Carnegie Mellon. Acquired by Hugging Face in April 2025, becoming the reference hardware for the LeRobot AI framework.

Founded 2016$5M raised

Humanoid Robots

PRODUCTION

Reachy 2

Open-source humanoid with LeRobot integration, dual 7 DoF arms, and embodied AI research tools.

About Pollen Robotics

Pollen Robotics is a French robotics company developing open-source humanoid robots for research, education, and embodied AI. Founded in 2016 in Bordeaux by former Inria researchers behind the Poppy robot project, the company has focused on creating accessible humanoid platforms that accelerate robotics research through open hardware and software. Its flagship robot, Reachy, has become one of the world’s most widely adopted open-source humanoid platforms, supporting researchers and developers across more than 20 countries. In 2025, Pollen Robotics was acquired by Hugging Face, bringing Reachy into a broader open-source AI ecosystem with the goal of making both its hardware and software openly available to the global robotics community.

Technical Profile

Platform maturity, autonomy stack, and flagship-system specifications in one view.

Technology Snapshot

A concise view of platform maturity and deployment footprint.

Flagship PlatformReachy 2

Deployments100

Reachy 2 Specs

Published operating specifications for the lead system.

Battery Life8 hours

Payload Capacity3 kg

Speed3.6 km/h

Degrees of Freedom18

Investors

Société Générale BNP Paribas Bpifrance

Latest Updates

April 2025Acquisition AnnouncedCorporate

Hugging Face acquires Pollen Robotics

In April 2025, Hugging Face acquired Pollen Robotics. The ~20 Pollen employees joined Hugging Face, and Reachy 2 became available through Hugging Face — the first time a major AI platform offered physical robot hardware alongside AI models.

Pollen Robotics Team

Matthieu LapeyreCEO

Pollen Robotics History

2016
Pollen Robotics is founded in Bordeaux
Pollen Robotics was founded in 2016 in Bordeaux by Matthieu Lapeyre, Pierre Rouanet, and Alice Coucke from Inria's Flowers team. They had previously created Poppy, one of the first 3D-printed open-source humanoid robots.
BordeauxInriaPoppy
January 2020
Reachy becomes the flagship open humanoid platform
Reachy launched at CES 2020 and gained traction globally, with ~100 robots operating in 20 countries. Pollen won second place in the ANA Avatar XPRIZE, claiming $2 million in prize money.
ReachyAvatar XPRIZE
April 2023
Seed funding supports Reachy 2
The company operated capital-light for seven years, securing a seed round of 2.4 million euros in April 2023. The next-generation Reachy 2 represented a significant upgrade in capability.
SeedReachy 2
April 2025
Hugging Face acquires Pollen Robotics
In April 2025, Hugging Face acquired Pollen Robotics. The ~20 Pollen employees joined Hugging Face, and Reachy 2 became available through Hugging Face, the first time a major AI platform offered physical robot hardware alongside AI models.
Hugging FaceAcquisition

Pollen Robotics is a Bordeaux-based French robotics company that created Reachy, one of the most widely adopted open-source humanoid robots in research, used across 20 countries. Founded in 2016 by former Inria researchers who created the Poppy robot. In April 2025, Pollen was acquired by Hugging Face, which plans to open-source both hardware and software.