Motion, the company behind Europe's first Humanoids-as-a-Service (HaaS) platform, has raised a $2 million pre-seed round led by Extantia Capital, with participation from Norrsken Evolve. The funding will transition Motion's five live pilots with Belgian industrial, warehouse, and logistics players into full production, expand the team, and grow its robot fleet, starting in the Benelux region.
Key takeaways
- HaaS model: Customers pay a single monthly fee with no upfront capital, covering data collection, robot selection, task training, IT integration, fleet management, financing, insurance, compliance, and maintenance.
- Current applications: Humanoids are being trained for tasks such as loading goods into crates, packing containers into boxes, and placing components on conveyor belts, working alongside human teams.
- Market context: Labor shortages are acute in Europe—72% of manufacturers report difficulty filling roles, according to ManpowerGroup's 2026 survey. Meanwhile, China is deploying humanoids at scale, with Goldman Sachs projecting annual shipments above 250,000 by 2030 and a market reaching $38 billion by 2035.
- Differentiators: Motion is OEM-agnostic, selecting the best-fit humanoid for each task, and offers a secure European software layer where customer data remains proprietary. A partner program for system integrators and automation specialists is also opening.
Motion's approach addresses the adoption gap by bundling financing, risk, and compliance into a predictable fee, making robot hiring as straightforward as human hiring. This could accelerate automation adoption in European manufacturing, supporting reshoring and clean technology production goals.
Source: Robotics & Automation News (roboticsandautomationnews.com) · Published 2026-08-27 · “Motion raises $2 million to put humanoid robots to work in European factories”