Motion raises $2M to bring humanoid robots to European factories
A $2M pre-seed led by Extantia Capital, with Norrsken Evolve, takes Motion's five live pilots into full production and scales its Humanoids-as-a-Service model across the Benelux.
Motion1 Inc. ·
Europe's factories are running short of hands. In ManpowerGroup's 2026 survey of 39,000 employers, 72% of manufacturers reported difficulty filling roles, with machine and plant operators among the most widespread shortages. The gap reaches beyond output: Europe's industrial ambitions, from reshoring to the clean transition, depend on production capacity the continent cannot currently staff.
At the same time, physical AI - artificial intelligence that perceives, decides and acts in the real world - has reached the factory floor in its most versatile form: the humanoid robot. China has already responded, deploying humanoids in its factories at scale, with Goldman Sachs expecting annual shipments above 250,000 by 2030 and the market reaching $38 billion by 2035. Europe has no equivalent path to adoption: the expertise to select, train, integrate and operate a humanoid simply does not exist inside most factories.
Today we are announcing a $2 million pre-seed round, led by Extantia Capital with participation from Norrsken Evolve. The funding takes our five live pilots into full production, expands the team and grows our robot fleet, starting in the Benelux.
Why humanoids are hard to adopt
Buying a humanoid is the easy part. Putting one to work is genuinely hard.
The robot has to learn a customer's specific tasks, which means collecting the right data from the production line. It has to slot into existing workflows and IT systems. It has to be safe and compliant with the EU Machinery Regulation and the AI Act, reliable across shifts, and financed, insured and maintained over a lifespan the market cannot yet predict.
Few industrial companies have that expertise in house, and none of them should have to build it.
"Europe has a robot adoption problem," says Alexander Stevens, founder and CEO of Motion, who exited his previous company, ESG software provider Greenomy, in 2025. "Adoption fails on financing, risk and compliance long before it fails on technology. So we take everything that stands between a factory and its first humanoid and turn it into one predictable monthly fee. Hiring a robot should be as easy as hiring a person."
Our answer is a single monthly fee
Motion is Europe's first Humanoids-as-a-Service platform. Customers pay one monthly fee with no upfront capital, covering everything adoption requires: data collection, robot selection, task training, IT integration, fleet management, financing, insurance, compliance and maintenance.
Our Field Deployment Engineers take each customer through every step, from idea to working process. Motion then manages the fleet, finances and insures every robot and keeps it compliant, with fees that adapt to the number of robots as the fleet scales up or down with production.
Two things set the model apart:
- We are OEM-agnostic. We select whichever humanoid fits the task best, wheeled or legged, gripper or hand, so customers never bet on a single vendor or a single form factor in a fast-moving hardware market.
- Every deployment makes the next one better, and your data stays yours. Each customer benefits from Motion's deployment experience across the entire network, while each customer's data remains its own on Motion's secure European software layer, with cyber security built into every deployment.
Already on the factory floor
We are running five pilots with Belgian industrial, warehouse and logistics players. On real production lines, our humanoids are being trained to load goods into crates, pack containers into boxes and place components on conveyor belts, side by side with the human teams they support.
These pilots are the base of a much larger rollout. With the new funding we will take them into full production, grow the team and multiply the fleet, with the goal of scaling to hundreds of robots across Europe over the next twelve months.
What our backers say
"The climate transition is ultimately a physical transformation: factories must produce and deploy vastly more batteries, heat pumps, grid equipment and other clean technologies," says Yair Reem, Partner at Extantia Capital. "Yet industrial growth is increasingly constrained by labour shortages, lost expertise and inefficient production. By backing Motion, Extantia is investing in the infrastructure needed to scale climate technologies faster, while making European manufacturing more efficient, resilient and globally competitive."
"Rebuilding our labour force is essential for Europe. What convinced us to jump on board was Motion's holistic vision on how to keep Europe building with robotics at the core," says Alex Bakir, General Partner at Norrsken Evolve.
What's next
Alongside direct deployments, we are opening a partner program for system integrators and automation specialists, who will deploy humanoids for their own customers on Motion's platform.
If your team is weighing humanoid automation, the fastest way to start is to check your fit: book a 30-minute assessment and tell us about the task you have in mind.
About Motion
Motion is Europe's Humanoids-as-a-Service operator, founded in Brussels in 2026. Its Field Deployment Engineers put humanoid robots to work on customers' production lines, while Motion finances, insures, maintains and manages the fleet, all for a single monthly fee. Motion is OEM-agnostic and backed by Extantia Capital and Norrsken Evolve.
Press contact: Alexander Stevens, alex@motion.one