Hugging Face, a prominent AI development platform, has announced the acquisition of Pollen Robotics, a French robotics startup, for an undisclosed sum. According to a report by Wired, Hugging Face intends to make Pollen’s humanoid robot, Reachy 2, available for purchase and allow developers to download and contribute to its codebase.
Pollen Robotics, founded in 2016 by Matthieu Lapeyre and Pierre Rouanet, aimed to make affordable humanoid robots accessible to the general public. Prior to its acquisition, the company secured €2.5 million (approximately $2.83 million) in funding from investors, including Bpifrance, as reported by Crunchbase.
Those who have been following the progress of robotics over the past 18 months may have noticed that robotics is increasingly becoming the next significant area where AI will have a major impact.
At Hugging Face, we envision a future where AI and robots are open-source, not just in robotics but across all AI fields.
— Thomas Wolf (@Thom_Wolf) April 14, 2025
This acquisition represents a significant expansion of Hugging Face’s robotics endeavors, building on the company’s existing collaboration with Pollen. Last year, Hugging Face and Pollen partnered to develop “Le Robot,” an open-source robot designed to perform various household tasks. Additionally, Hugging Face has established a dedicated robotics team led by Remi Cadene, a former robotics engineer from Tesla’s Optimus program.
