Amazon has acquired Fauna Robotics, a New York-based humanoid robot startup, marking the e-commerce and cloud computing giant’s latest and most ambitious move yet into the rapidly expanding consumer robotics space, according to Bloomberg.
The deal, which closed last week according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss a private transaction, positions Amazon as one of the newest major technology companies to enter the burgeoning consumer humanoid market. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Fauna Robotics launched out of stealth as recently as January 2026, unveiling its debut robot, Sprout, a friendly and capable humanoid platform designed to operate safely in shared human spaces. The startup quickly attracted attention for taking a decidedly different approach from competitors focused on heavy industrial automation.
Sprout is a compact, sage-green humanoid robot priced at $50,000 and designed as a ready-to-walk developer platform. Standing 3.5 feet tall with a soft foam exterior, the robot offers expressive gestures, gripper-style hands, and an integrated software development kit, enabling researchers, startups, and enterprises to prototype interactive applications straight out of the box.
The robot is described as human-like, standing 42 inches tall with arms and legs, and capable of interacting with people, walking, gripping items, and even dancing
Early customers already utilizing the platform include Disney, Boston Dynamics, UC San Diego, and NYU, with applications spanning retail, entertainment, home services, and other people-friendly environments. That early roster of high-profile clients helped signal that Fauna had quickly carved out a credible position in a fast-moving field.
The company was founded by a team with deep roots in consumer technology. The NYC-based team has been involved in multiple exits and several market-defining hardware lines, with co-founder and CEO Rob Cochran previously working at CTRL-labs, the brain-computer interface startup acquired by Meta. The robot’s hardware was overseen by VP of Hardware Anthony Moschella, a former Peloton vice president, who brought a consumer product design philosophy to what is typically a heavily industrial field.
Fauna’s thesis — that friendly, consumer-facing robots would find a market before warehouse machines became ubiquitous — appears to have caught Amazon’s eye. Unlike expensive, heavy, and intimidating industrial robots, Fauna focused on deploying approachable, lightweight robots in human-centric spaces that are safe to be around anyone from adults to children to pets.
The acquisition comes as the broader humanoid robotics industry experiences a surge of investment and consolidation. Robotics-related startups secured around $7.2 billion in seed- through growth-stage investments in 2024 alone, reflecting growing confidence that humanoid robots are transitioning from experimental technology to viable commercial products. Manufacturing costs have also fallen sharply: the cost of producing humanoid robots dropped from a range of $50,000 to $250,000 per unit to between $30,000 and $150,000, with costs declining roughly 40 percent — far faster than the 15 to 20 percent annually that had been anticipated.
Amazon is not alone among tech titans making bold robotics bets. Mobileye recently announced plans to acquire Mentee Robotics, a developer of vertically integrated humanoid robots, for $900 million. Tesla continues development of its Optimus humanoid for manufacturing applications, while Figure AI closed a funding round that valued it at approximately $39 billion.
Goldman Sachs projects the humanoid robotics market will reach $38 billion by 2035, driven by declining costs, manufacturing scalability, and enterprise adoption. – Analysts widely expect the path to that figure to run through consumer and service environments before fully penetrating homes — precisely the terrain Fauna has been staking out.
For Amazon, the deal represents a natural extension of its longstanding interest in robotics, which has historically focused on warehouse automation. Adding a consumer-oriented humanoid platform could open entirely new avenues for the company across retail, home services, and entertainment — sectors where Fauna had already begun building a foothold in a matter of months.
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