Digit Robot Is in 9 Factories, Now Going Public

Agility Robotics' bipedal Digit robot is currently operating at nine customer sites across manufacturing and logistics — Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, GXO Logistics, Schaeffler, and Mercado Libre among them. The company has more than $300 million in multi-year orders already signed. That's the context for its announcement that it will go public via a SPAC merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI at a $2.5 billion valuation, generating over $620 million in proceeds.

Why these aren't demo robots

Humanoid robots have spent several years living in a hype cycle fed by impressive demos that rarely translated into real deployments. Agility Robotics is in a different position: its customers are not running pilots. Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada is using Digit to address actual labor shortages on a real production line. GXO is deploying it in logistics operations. Mercado Libre is testing it in fulfillment. The $300 million order book means the capital raise is primarily about fulfilling existing demand, not about finding new customers. More than 30 additional companies are currently in the evaluation pipeline.

The deal and what the money goes toward

The SPAC structure brings in over $620 million, with $200 million from new and existing institutional investors. Agility is backed by Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The capital is earmarked for three things: expanding production capacity for the next-generation Digit v5, fulfilling the existing order backlog, and supporting the 30-plus companies currently evaluating the platform. CEO Peggy Johnson has framed the moment around scale, not proof of concept — the question is how fast production can grow, not whether the robots can work.

AI is why this is possible

Digit operates in factory environments that were never designed for robots — spaces built around humans, with unpredictable layouts, variable lighting, and objects that move. Its ability to navigate those environments in real time depends on AI models that recognize objects, plan movements, and adapt when something unexpected happens. The same wave of AI improvements that made language models dramatically more capable in 2023 and 2024 is the same wave that made robots like Digit viable in real industrial settings.

The Amazon connection is particularly worth noting: Amazon has deployed warehouse automation extensively and is one of Digit's investors. Nvidia's presence means the robot has access to the GPU ecosystem that powers its perception and planning systems. These aren't passive investors — they're infrastructure providers whose platforms Digit depends on.

What the IPO signals

Going public with a real order book changes what humanoid robotics looks like as an investment category. It's no longer a bet on a future possibility — it's an investment in a company with revenue, customers, and a production backlog. Whether Digit v5 delivers on its improvements and whether the stock holds after listing are still open questions. But the underlying fact stands on its own: humanoid robots are in Toyota factories today, and the company that put them there just opened a path to public markets with actual orders behind it.