Amazon purchases Fauna Robotics.

      Amazon has made its second robotics acquisition this month by adding a 50-pound, 3.5-foot bipedal robot named Sprout to its portfolio, just under two months after Fauna launched it to research and development partners. The financial details of the deal were not revealed.

      The competition to place a humanoid robot in every household has gained a new participant. Amazon has acquired Fauna Robotics, a New York startup founded two years ago, whose robot, Sprout, is designed to be friendly enough to stand next to a child rather than being confined behind a safety barrier. The acquisition was finalized last week, according to sources cited by Bloomberg, and confirmed by Amazon on Tuesday. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

      Fauna was established in 2024 by Rob Cochran and Josh Merel, two engineers who met while working at Meta. Cochran previously led product development at CTRL-labs, a neural interface startup acquired by Meta in 2019, and later had a stint at Goldman Sachs before returning to hardware. Merel moved on from Google DeepMind, where he was a research scientist and manager, to join Cochran in creating Fauna. The company has a team of about 50 people in New York, including professionals from Meta, Google DeepMind, and notably, Amazon. Fauna raised a total of $16.6 million in funding before being acquired.

      Launched to R&D partners in January 2026, Sprout is intentionally not the type of robot most people envision when they hear the term humanoid. It stands 3.5 feet tall and weighs 50 pounds, resembling a ten-year-old more than the six-foot industrial robots being developed by Tesla and Boston Dynamics for factory environments.

      Sprout is capable of walking, picking up light objects, showing emotions through articulated eyebrows and LED facial displays, and autonomously navigating with an SDK that enables developers to create applications in minutes. Priced at $50,000, it is explicitly positioned as a developer platform—a creative base for researchers, educators, and corporate labs working on applications for human-centric environments, rather than as a consumer product aimed at mass retail.

      At launch, early customers included Disney, Boston Dynamics, UC San Diego, and NYU, indicating a blend of commercial and research interest in Sprout's unique niche. Boston Dynamics, which manufactures full-size industrial humanoids under Hyundai, is also exploring how lighter, friendlier robots might be utilized in settings outside of factories. Its chief strategy officer mentioned at Sprout's launch that the robot allows people to “see the future a little bit” regarding machines that could be integrated into homes.

      For Amazon, this acquisition marks a significant strategic shift from its previous consumer robotics initiatives. The company introduced Astro, a wheeled home robot, in 2021 at a price of $1,600, which was only available by invitation and remains a niche product. In 2024, Amazon canceled its planned $1.7 billion acquisition of iRobot, the maker of Roomba, due to regulatory scrutiny in the US and Europe.

      Fauna represents Amazon’s second robotics acquisition this month; it also confirmed the acquisition of Rivr, a Zurich-based startup creating a four-legged stair-climbing robot for last-mile delivery. Fauna’s focus is different, targeting consumer and research sectors rather than logistics, suggesting that Amazon is constructing a comprehensive robotics portfolio that encompasses warehouses, delivery, and eventually home applications.

      Fauna will continue to operate as Fauna Robotics, an Amazon subsidiary, with its team remaining in New York.