Facts

• Segment: Humanoid
• Country: United States
• Founded: 2024
• Website: https://foundation.bot

Profile sections

• Summary
• Market context
• Products
• Facts
• Context / Market Position
• Events
• Team
• Context tags
• Articles
• Sources

Summary

Foundation Robotics builds autonomous humanoid robots for physical work. Its product work includes the Phantom robot and Cortex AI system, with the company describing its mission as building autonomous machines that can perform broad workforce tasks.

Market context

Foundation matters because it is unusually explicit about defense-aligned humanoid deployment, giving it a different market wedge from consumer or warehouse-first competitors. Phantom MK1 humanoid platform.

• Capability: humanoid industrial deployment defense logistics robotics teleoperated humanoid control embodied AI task execution
• Strategic position: defense-focused humanoid platform builder early supplier of humanoids for military and hazardous environments

Products

• Phantom MK1

Facts

• Website: https://foundation.bot
• HQ: San Francisco, United States
• Founded: 2024
• Segment: Humanoid
• Funding total: $111M

General-purpose humanoid robots for workforce and field operations

Foundation Robotics develops general-purpose humanoid robots and autonomous machines. Its public platform direction includes Phantom robot hardware and Cortex AI, with stated focus on workforce applications and difficult physical operations.

• Target environment: Industrial sites, logistics environments, defence-adjacent field tests, human-scale workspaces and general-purpose robot development settings.
• Deployment model: Humanoid platform model built around robot hardware, AI software, field demonstrations, customer programs and staged deployment.
• Customer context: Industrial operators, defence-adjacent users, logistics customers, robotics partners and organizations testing humanoid robots for physical work.
• Workflow context: Humanoid mobility, manipulation, physical task execution, autonomous machines, workforce automation, field testing and robot AI.
• Commercial maturity: Foundation Robotics is early-stage, with public maturity tied to disclosed humanoid development, financing and platform progress rather than scaled commercial deployment.
• Market position: US humanoid robotics company positioned around general-purpose workforce robots and field-use cases.
• Adoption constraints: Reliability, safety, production scale, autonomy depth, manipulation performance, customer validation, procurement timelines and operational support.
• Adjacent context: Humanoid robotics, general-purpose robots, embodied AI, workforce automation, defence-adjacent robotics and mobile manipulation.
• Source confidence: medium

Events

• 2025-12-17 - Production Milestone - Foundation plans 50,000 Phantom humanoids for industrial and defense deployment by 2027 - Company outlined roadmap scaling from ~40 units in 2025 to 50,000 by 2027
• 2025-12-16 - Demonstration - Foundation co-founder Mike LeBlanc partners with military for Phantom humanoid operations - Collaborates with military branches for operational testing of Phantom humanoids.
• 2025-12-01 - Demonstration - Foundation demonstrates Phantom MK1 humanoid with teleoperation interface - Phantom MK1 shown operating via VR-based teleoperation system
• 2025-11-20 - Demonstration - Foundation Robotics Demonstrates Phantom MK1 at Newsweek HQ - Foundation Robotics showcased the Phantom MK1 humanoid robot at Newsweek's New York City headquarters.

Team

• Sankaet Pathak - Founder and Chief Executive Officer
• Mike LeBlanc - Co-Founder
• Arjun Sethi - Co-Founder

Context tags

• Robot OEM - Stack Layer - Company is building complete humanoid robot systems.
• Humanoid industrial builder - Peer Group - Foundation says it is developing a humanoid for manufacturing, logistics, domestic settings and defence.
• Bipedal locomotion - Capability - Foundation positions Phantom as humanoid; locomotion details should remain derived unless product specs are attached.
• Factories - Customer Environment - Foundation names manufacturing as a target environment.
• Industrial task execution - Workflow - Foundation states target settings include manufacturing and logistics.
• Dexterous manipulation - Capability - Target labor/task execution implies manipulation, but keep derived until product-level evidence is attached.
• Pilot deployments - Commercial Stage - Public development activity exists, but deployment maturity remains early.

Articles

• 2025-04-15 - Foundation debuts Phantom MK-1, its industrial and defence humanoid - The San Francisco startup, co-founded by the former CEO of bankrupt fintech Synapse and Tribe Capital's Arjun Sethi, shipped 40 Phantom…