From iCub to humanoids: Generative Bionics raises $81M

Generative Bionics, an Italian humanoid robot developer, raised €70 million ($81.2 million) in funding. The firm acknowledged the modern funding could aid it fabricate its product, put together bodily AI systems, and invent its first production plant. Generative Bionics acknowledged it’s additionally finalizing its first industrial deployment contracts, which this could declare in early 2026.

The firm plans to unveil your total version of its first humanoid at CES in Las Vegas.

“Our mission is to manufacture a future the keep wise humanoid robots collaborate day-to-day with other folks, amplifying human cognitive and bodily seemingly,” acknowledged Daniele Pucci, CEO and co-founding father of Generative Bionics. “Our Physical AI enables us to device and fabricate human-impressed robots that fabricate tangible price across extra than one applications. Primarily essentially based on leading worldwide analyses, the humanoid robotics market will exceed €200 billion by 2035 and could perhaps silent surpass $5 trillion by 2050. This is an epochal transformation: our purpose is to popularity Generative Bionics as a world leader in Physical AI for human-centric humanoid ecosystems.”

Generative Bionics is building on bigger than Two decades of research, style, and prototyping of humanoids at IIT. The firm spun out of IIT in 2024. IIT has granted the firm routine licenses to key technologies.

The funding round used to be led by the Man made Intelligence Fund of CDP Mission Capital. It integrated participation from AMD Ventures, Duferco, Eni Subsequent, RoboIT, and Tether.

“With the open of Generative Bionics, the Italian Institute of Expertise is bringing to fruition one more key part of its mission to make stronger Italy’s national industrial machine, contributing to the self-discipline of cutting-edge, next-generation robotics,” acknowledged Giorgio Metta, scientific director of IIT. “Twenty years delight in passed since we launched the iCub venture, IIT’s flagship platform, which laid the strong technological foundations for the Institute’s humanoid robotics program—coaching an total bunch of researchers, patenting and transferring to alternate a range of evolved technical solutions. Generative Bionics is the fruits of this work: the transfer of science to alternate. It reveals that sustained, right make stronger for Italian analysis ends in concrete, distinctive results. Generative Bionics is the supreme tutorial slide-off in Europe, now entering the world market.”

Generative Bionics’ humanoids are constructed on technologies developed in IIT’s major robotics applications. This entails iCub, a cognitive analysis robot; ergoCub, the humanoid co-developed with INAIL to make stronger workers in industrial settings; and iRonCub, a flying humanoid.

From this foundation, the firm has outlined three technological pillars for its humanoids:

• A distributed network of tactile and power sensors, derived from iCub, enabling right bodily interplay
• A Physical AI architecture, refined through ergoCub, allowing humanoids to be designed for particular applications and to be taught in an instant from true environments
• Superior AI ideas, developed with iRonCub, enabling adaptation to grisly operational prerequisites equivalent to excessive temperatures or complicated out of doors environments

Humanoids originate up becoming a member of the crew

For the previous couple of years, humanoids delight in dominated conversations in robotics. Per week, modern humanoid corporations are stoning up all over the world, and established corporations are bringing in gigantic funding rounds.

To illustrate, Agility Robotics this day introduced its most current Digit deployment. Mercado Libre, a number one commerce and fintech ecosystem in Latin The United States, is integrating Digit correct into a facility in San Antonio, Texas. The corporations didn’t present many particulars about what the robot will fabricate on the flexibility.

Digit used to be first deployed with GXO in June 2024. This is widely regarded as to be the principle deployment of a humanoid at a industrial customer location.

Whereas Agility will seemingly be leading the vogue in deployments thus far, Resolve AI leads in funding. In September 2025, the firm closed its Sequence C funding round. With the round, it surpassed $1 billion in committed capital, bringing its submit-money valuation to $39 billion. Resolve has deployed its robots with a paying customer since December 2024.

Both Agility and Resolve are American corporations. In Europe, Generative Bionics will face competitors from Humanoid, a U.K.-essentially essentially essentially based developer that released its first humanoid earlier this month. Additionally, Agile Robots, a German developer, unveiled its humanoid Agile ONE in November.