Hugging Face has acquired Pollen Robotics, a French robotics startup, for an undisclosed amount, expanding its robotics initiatives and plans to sell Pollen’s humanoid robot, Reachy 2, with open-source code.
Hugging Face intends to sell Pollen Robotics’ humanoid robot, Reachy 2, and allow developers to download and suggest improvements to its code. This move aligns with Hugging Face’s belief in a future where AI and robots are open-source, as stated by Thomas Wolf, “If you’ve followed the progress of robotics in the past 18 months, you’ve likely noticed how robotics is increasingly becoming the next frontier that AI will unlock. At Hugging Face—in robotics and across all AI fields—we believe in a future where AI and robots are open-source,…” on April 14, 2025.
Pollen Robotics was founded in 2016 by Matthieu Lapeyre and Pierre Rouanet with the goal of making humanoid robots accessible for home use. Before its acquisition, the company raised €2.5 million, approximately $2.83 million, from investors, including Bpifrance, as reported by Crunchbase.
The acquisition represents a significant expansion of Hugging Face’s robotics efforts. Prior to the acquisition, Hugging Face collaborated with Pollen Robotics to build “Le Robot,” an open-source robot trained for various household chores. Following the acquisition, Hugging Face established a robotics team headed by Remi Cadene, a former robotics engineer from Tesla’s Optimus program.
