Hugging Face Buys Humanoid Robotics Startup Pollen Robotics

AI development platform Hugging Face has acquired Pollen Robotics, a French startup specializing in humanoid robots, in a move that signals the company’s growing ambitions in the robotics space. While the terms of the deal remain undisclosed, the acquisition underscores Hugging Face’s intent to bridge the gap between AI software and real-world, physical automation.

Founded in 2016 by Matthieu Lapeyre and Pierre Rouanet, Pollen Robotics set out with a clear mission: to make humanoid robots accessible and affordable for everyday environments. The startup gained recognition for its open-source robot, Reachy—a versatile, expressive humanoid designed for interaction and experimentation. Its most recent iteration, Reachy 2, is expected to take center stage under Hugging Face’s stewardship. Developers will be able to purchase Reachy 2 and actively contribute to its software, continuing Pollen’s tradition of open-source collaboration.

Prior to the acquisition, Pollen raised approximately €2.5 million (around $2.83 million USD), with backing from notable investors like Bpifrance. The company also worked closely with Hugging Face on prior robotics initiatives. In 2023, the two teamed up to develop “Le Robot,” an open-source robotic system trained for domestic tasks—like folding laundry and making coffee—blurring the line between cutting-edge AI and practical robotics.

The acquisition follows Hugging Face’s quiet but deliberate expansion into robotics. The company recently formed a dedicated robotics division, led by Remi Cadene, formerly a robotics engineer on Tesla’s Optimus project. With the addition of Pollen's talent and technology, Hugging Face now has a strong foundation to push further into embodied AI—AI that can sense, understand, and act in the physical world.

For Hugging Face, a platform best known for its work in natural language processing and machine learning models, this move represents a significant step into the realm of hardware and real-world application. By open-sourcing the code behind Reachy and inviting contributions from the global developer community, the company continues its ethos of democratizing AI—now with arms, sensors, and potentially, a sense of touch.

As AI continues its march beyond the screen and into our homes, Hugging Face’s acquisition of Pollen Robotics may prove to be a defining moment—one where the power of open-source intelligence begins to shape the future of human-robot interaction.