UMA
"Building intelligent robots that enhance quality of life for everyone"
UMA is a Paris-unveiled humanoid robotics startup founded by ex-Tesla Optimus and LeRobot creator Remi Cadene.
UMA is a robotics and artificial intelligence startup building general-purpose mobile and humanoid robots aimed at industrial applications such as logistics and manufacturing. The company was co-founded by Remi Cadene, who previously worked on Tesla's Autopilot and Optimus humanoid programs and created LeRobot, the open-source robotics library and community hosted by Hugging Face. His co-founders include Robert Knight (Chief Robot Officer), who brings more than 25 years of experience in humanoid robot mechanical design, Pierre Sermanet (Chief Science Officer), a former researcher at NYU, Google Brain and DeepMind, and Simon Alibert (CTO), who was the lead infrastructure architect behind LeRobot at Hugging Face. UMA describes its mission as building robots with human-level dexterity and a deep, physically grounded understanding of the world, rather than robots that only follow scripted motions. In July 2026 the company unveiled the design of its first AI-powered industrial humanoid robot at a Paris robotics expo, positioning it as a platform intended for real-world deployment in warehouses and factories, with pilot programs planned to begin in 2026. The team, drawn from AI research labs (Google DeepMind, NYU) and applied robotics programs (Tesla, Hugging Face), combines large-scale machine learning expertise with hands-on humanoid hardware experience, and the company describes itself as an international, multidisciplinary organization with advisors linked to French research institutions such as Sorbonne University and Valeo.ai. UMA has attracted a group of early-stage venture investors including Greycroft, Relentless Ventures, Unity Growth Fund, Commit, Factorial and Kima Ventures, along with more than a dozen individual angel investors, among them AI researchers Yann LeCun and Soumith Chintala. The company's public-facing work builds on the open-source LeRobot ecosystem, reflecting a strategy of pairing proprietary hardware development with broader contributions to the humanoid and imitation-learning research community. As of mid-2026 UMA has not disclosed detailed hardware specifications, degrees of freedom, payload capacity or pricing for its humanoid platform, and has not published a specific model name beyond referring to its robots generically as UMA humanoids. The company is still in a pre-commercial stage, with its Paris expo unveiling serving as a public design reveal rather than a product launch, and go-to-market details for its planned 2026 logistics and manufacturing pilots have not yet been made public.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
UMA (Universal Mechanical Assistant)
General-purpose humanoid robot designed for human-level dexterity, with pilot programs in logistics and manufacturing planned for 2026.
Company Facts
Founded
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Primary Role
Manufacturer
Company Size
employees 10-50
Primary Region
Europe
Annual Sales
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Funding Stage
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Funding Total
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Robotics Automation AI
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Robotics Automation AI
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Robotics Automation AI
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