Humanoid Robotics Technology
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.
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.
Motion has announced a $2 million pre-seed round, led by Extantia Capital with participation from Norrsken Evolve. The funding will take its five live pilots into full production, expand the team and grow its robot fleet, starting in the Benelux.
“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.”
Their 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.
Its 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.
Already On The Factory Floor
Motion is running five pilots with Belgian industrial, warehouse and logistics players. On real production lines, its 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, Motion 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’s Next
Alongside direct deployments, Motion is opening a partner programme for system integrators and automation specialists, who will deploy humanoids for their own customers on Motion’s platform.
Companies weighing humanoid automation can assess their suitability by booking a 30-minute assessment and discussing the task they have in mind.
Source: Motion
