Amazon's Bet On Humanoid Robotics Company Has A “major Turnover” At The Top.

All for Commercialization

While the battle is raging among manufacturers, Agility Robotic, with its leading bipedal gait technology and the support of a group of luxury capital behind it, has built its own large-scale factory and worked in the field to enter the list of "star unicorns" of humanoid robots. With the commercialization of the footsteps approaching, the company's senior camp is now a new shock.
In March 2024, Agility Robotics founder Damion Shelton stepped down and was replaced by seasoned heavyweight Peggy Johnson, adding more troops to the commercialization battle. what does the change of blood after February mean? Where is the commercialization journey of humanoid robots headed?

Emerging from the wind

In the past, robotics technology has allowed the degree of automation in advanced manufacturing to increase, but there are still many processes that cannot be fully automated and require human intervention, while the continuous rise in labor costs and the increasingly prominent shortage of skilled workers have also brought enormous pressure on enterprises.
In this context, new robots that can partially replace human labor have emerged. Unlike previous industrial robots, new robots are highly flexible and collaborative, and can work seamlessly with humans in complex environments, with humanoid robots seen as the most promising category and the "biggest winner" of the current AI wave.

Agility Robotics' path to humanoid robotics began in 2015.

At the beginning, relying on the founder's research background at Carnegie Mellon University, the company focused on the breakthrough of bipedal walking technology at the beginning, and launched the first bipedal humanoid robot Digit in 2019.
Digit is 1.75m tall and weighs 65kg, and compared to the humanoid leg type used by other humanoid robots, Digit adopts the structure of ostrich legs, which provides a larger support area and load-bearing capacity, and can lift up to 16kg of weight. In addition, Digit is equipped with a large number of sensors, combined with AI algorithms can walk and plan routes autonomously in complex environments, and collaborate with human staff to complete handling, loading and unloading and other operational tasks.
Digit has attracted a lot of attention since its introduction, reflecting the broad application prospects of humanoid robots in the industrial field. 2020, Digit signed a cooperation agreement with Ford Motor Company, planning to use it in the last-mile delivery scenarios of the car factory logistics.

Although this plan was later shelved, it also prompted Agility Robotics to shift its focus to general-purpose scenarios in the warehousing and logistics industry, paving the way for later commercialization.

How a star unicorn is made

Commercialization has always been the biggest challenge for Agility Robotics, and for the humanoid robot industry as a whole. After all, compared with industrial robots, humanoid robots have a higher technological threshold, greater costs, and a lack of scale to support the landing scenarios.

Agility Robotics was established so far, a total of four rounds of financing, the financing process to the B round, the cumulative amount raised $178 million (about 1.29 billion yuan), shareholders include Sony, DCVC, Playground Global, Amazon and other well-known companies.

Among them, in addition to the financial support of Amazon in 2022 in the B round of $150 million financing, but also since 2023 on the pilot use of Digit robots in the warehouse system. And from the pilot, Digit has been able to take on more than 98% of repetitive lifting jobs thanks to its physical strength, endurance, cost and accuracy.

Demand has also prompted Agility Robotics to accelerate the pace of its capacity expansion.

In September 2023, the company opened Robofab, its first robotics manufacturing facility with a capacity of up to 10,000 units per year, in Salem, Oregon.With the factory up and running, Agility Robotics is on track to complete deliveries of its first Digit robots in 2024 and have a full-scale market launch by 2025, with an estimated pricing of $250,000 USD.

And in order to serve the company's commercialization process, the company experienced a dramatic personnel earthquake at the top.
In March 2024, co-founder Damien Shelton stepped down as CEO and became president instead, while Peggy Johnson, who had come over from Qualcomm and Microsoft, was parachuted in to take on the role of the new CEO and was given the commercialization mantle of focusing on sales, strategic partnerships, and fundraising.

Compared to the founding team, which is more adept at technology development, Johnson is experienced and well-read in sales, marketing, and business development for tech companies, which will allow Agility Robotics to get on a more solid path to commercialization.

In addition to the change in leadership, Agility Robotics recently enacted another important personnel appointment, with veteran artificial intelligence expert Pras Velagapudi becoming chief technology officer, focusing on product innovation and upgrades for Digit. Meanwhile, former Fetch Robotics CEO Melonee Wise will serve as Chief Product Officer and former Magic Leap Chief Commercial Officer Daniel Diez will serve as Chief Strategy Officer to strengthen the leadership team.

As Chief Strategy Officer, Diez is responsible for developing Agility's overall business and go-to-market strategy, working closely with CEO Peggy Johnson. In this role, he will also lead all marketing, product marketing and communications efforts to build the company's reputation and increase awareness and demand for Digit as the company enters its next phase of rapid commercial growth.
Prior to joining Agility, Diez led the company's public transition from a consumer technology startup to an enterprise technology company at Magic Leap, where he was responsible for the commercial launch of Magic Leap 2, and served as chief marketing officer and head of product at Transform Brands, and global chief marketing officer at global marketing and innovation agency R/GA, where he helped to lead the company's transformation from digital marketing agency to global advertising and brand transformation giant.

Since joining Agility in May 2023 as Chief Technology Officer, Wise has transformed the way the company approaches product development as it prepares to bring its products to market at scale. In addition to leading the company's engineering and technology efforts for Digit, she created and led the team that conceptualized, built and launched Agility Arc, a cloud automation platform for deploying and managing the Digits fleet alongside other automation solutions. In the CPO's expanded role, Wise will continue to lead Agility's engineering team in addition to the newly formed product organization.

In his year at Agility, Velagapudi has driven the company's AI strategy and made several breakthroughs in using AI to accelerate Digit's commercial capabilities. As CTO, Velagapudi will continue to focus on pragmatic product-related innovations, implementing the company's R&D efforts and constantly exploring new technologies with a focus on applying modern and emerging AI to achieve commercial scale.
Velagapudi has decades of experience in robot planning and control, and creating and deploying robots into domestic, industrial, and outdoor environments.Velagapudi earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from Carnegie Mellon University, where he served as an adjunct faculty member and project scientist for several years.

The overhaul of Agility Robotics' top lineup sends a strong signal to the outside world - the company is entering a critical period of commercialization explosion, the technology is maturing, and a new force of life is urgently needed to lead marketing and business development.

Currently, the humanoid robotics track is highly competitive, with the veteran humanoid robotics company Boston Dynamics, followed by Optimus, Figure, as well as a number of domestic and other up-and-comers, all stepping up the pace of breakout commercialization.
In the future, relying on artificial intelligence algorithms and sophisticated dynamic control capabilities, humanoid robots that can seamlessly collaborate with humans in scenarios with complex environments and changing tasks will make their mark in various industries.
Overall, humanoid robots are entering a period of explosive growth, with the dawn of commercialization. In the future, we are likely to see more "steel warriors" into the factory production line, into the family life. And who will be able to commercialize humanoid robots will determine the final winner of this track.

As a star unicorn, will Agility Robotics' senior management change bring new opportunities for the company?