1. Company identity

1X is a US-Norwegian robotics company developing humanoid robots and the artificial-intelligence systems that control them. Its current strategy is unusually direct: place a human-shaped robot in ordinary homes, collect experience from real household work, and use that data to improve a generalist model over time.

The flagship product, NEO, can be reserved by US consumers. 1X lists a $20,000 Early Access ownership option, a future $499-per-month subscription and a $200 refundable deposit. Those terms make NEO more concrete than most consumer-humanoid announcements. They do not make it a finished autonomous housekeeper. The company says early units arrive with basic autonomy and offers scheduled “Expert Mode,” in which a 1X operator can remotely supervise unfamiliar tasks.

2. Basic information

3. Founding team and leadership

Bernt Øyvind Børnich founded the company in Norway in 2014 under the Halodi Robotics name. Early work centered on low-gear-ratio, tendon-like actuation intended to produce compliant movement around people. The company later became 1X and moved its global headquarters to an 80,000-square-foot Palo Alto facility announced in 2025.

Børnich remains CEO and the public architect of the company’s home-first strategy. 1X appointed Bill Nash as chief financial officer in 2026 and has recruited manufacturing, product and engineering leaders from companies including Tesla, BMW and SpaceX. The company maintains Norwegian engineering roots while expanding AI, production and deployment teams in California.

4. Products and programs

NEO is a bipedal humanoid designed for homes. Its soft exterior, relatively light body and tendon-driven mechanisms are meant to reduce the risks associated with a large moving machine near people, furniture and pets. The order page describes voice interaction, self-charging and household tasks, while clearly stating that early owners receive only basic autonomy.

In July 2026, 1X introduced a 25-degree-of-freedom tendon-driven hand that it says will ship on every NEO. The company presents dexterity as a hardware interface for future skills, but claims that the new hand removes the hardware limit on household work remain unverified.

EVE is an earlier wheeled humanoid used in security, logistics and industrial settings. Its mobile base simplifies balance and allows 1X to collect manipulation and navigation data without solving bipedal walking first. NEO, however, is now the company’s main product and public identity.

The AI stack includes Redwood, a vision-language-action system for mobile manipulation, and the 1X World Model, which predicts the consequences of robot actions to support evaluation and model selection. In 2026, 1X also announced a dedicated World Model Lab.

5. Core technology

1X’s hardware philosophy favors compliant mechanisms over rigid, high-ratio industrial actuation. Tendon-driven joints and soft coverings are intended to make physical contact less dangerous and the robot less visually intrusive in a home. NEO’s form factor is human-shaped because the target environment—doors, counters, shelves, appliances and tools—was built around human reach and motion.

Redwood links camera input and language instructions to movement. 1X describes it as a generalist model capable of tasks such as object retrieval, navigation and door opening. The World Model is an evaluation tool trained on video frames, robot observations and action trajectories. It predicts possible future states so engineers can compare policies without physically replaying every variation.

Simulation and NVIDIA infrastructure are also part of the stack. 1X says it uses Isaac Sim and Isaac Lab for training, Blackwell GPUs for foundation models, and Jetson Thor onboard NEO for local inference. These components support the development pipeline; they are not evidence that the robot can independently complete the full range of promoted household chores.

6. Financing history

1X announced a $23.5 million Series A2 in March 2023 led by the OpenAI Startup Fund, with participation from Tiger Global, Sandwater, Alliance Ventures and Skagerak Capital. The company said the money would support NEO development and EVE manufacturing.

In January 2024, 1X announced a $100 million Series B involving EQT Ventures, Samsung NEXT, Skagerak Capital, the Nistad group and other investors. Both 1X and EQT said the company had raised more than $125 million in less than 12 months. The announcement included a secondary transaction, so the full $100 million should not automatically be treated as new operating cash.

Reports in 2025 described discussions about a much larger financing, but no completed round with an amount and final valuation was confirmed in the primary sources used for this profile. Revenue, current valuation and cash position remain undisclosed.

7. Partnerships and deployment

1X says EVE robots have operated at customer facilities in security and logistics, but current public material provides limited fleet-level detail. The more consequential program is NEO’s private early-access work in homes, where robots gather data and expose the system to household variation. The number of participating homes and the degree of autonomous operation have not been disclosed.

In late 2025, 1X announced a framework with investor EQT under which up to 10,000 NEO robots could become available to EQT portfolio companies through 2030. EQT told Axios that the memorandum was not a deployment commitment. It should therefore be treated as an access and exploration framework, not a 10,000-unit order.

The company says customer deliveries will begin in the United States in 2026 and international expansion will follow in 2027. Its order page still frames delivery as a forward commitment. No independently documented customer-home delivery was identified for this profile.

8. Business model

1X is testing two consumer models. Early Access buyers can pay $20,000 for ownership, priority delivery, premium support and a three-year warranty. The planned standard offering is a $499 monthly subscription with a starter productivity package and standard delivery. Both are reserved with a refundable $200 deposit.

Expert Mode is central to the product, not a minor support feature. When NEO cannot perform a task, a customer can schedule a 1X expert to supervise the robot remotely. This can provide utility before full autonomy and generate training demonstrations. It also creates labor cost, privacy, security and consent questions. The commercial model may therefore combine hardware, software updates, remote operations and support rather than resemble a conventional appliance sale.

The company has not disclosed how many deposits it holds, the terms of Expert Mode beyond published summaries, subscription minimums, expected utilization, gross margin or the cost of servicing early customers.

9. Development timeline

• 2014: Bernt Øyvind Børnich founds Halodi Robotics.
• 2018: The company develops its Revo1 actuator platform.
• 2022: 1X says wheeled EVE robots are deployed at customer facilities.
• 2023: The company raises $23.5 million, adopts the 1X identity and begins emphasizing home humanoids.
• 2024: 1X raises a $100 million Series B and introduces NEO Beta.
• 2025: NEO Gamma appears; private home testing expands; 1X opens its Palo Alto headquarters and begins public NEO preorders.
• 2026: The Hayward NEO Factory begins producing development and test units; 1X announces new hands, a World Model Lab and planned customer shipments.

10. Evidence ledger

Confirmed

• 1X was founded in 2014 and is led by founder and CEO Bernt Øyvind Børnich.
• NEO can be reserved with a $200 refundable deposit.
• 1X publicly lists $20,000 ownership and a future $499 monthly subscription.
• The company disclosed a $23.5 million Series A2 and a $100 million Series B.
• 1X openly describes scheduled remote Expert Mode for complex tasks.
• A Hayward manufacturing facility was announced as operational in April 2026.

Company claim

• US consumer deliveries will begin in 2026.
• The Hayward factory can build 10,000 robots annually and may scale beyond 100,000 by the end of 2027.
• First-year production capacity of more than 10,000 units sold out in five days.
• NEO’s new hands remove hardware as the principal limit on useful dexterity.
• Redwood and the 1X World Model will generalize across diverse household tasks.

Unknown

• Number of NEO robots delivered to paying households.
• Share of household tasks completed autonomously rather than through Expert Mode.
• Reliability, safety and maintenance performance in ordinary homes.
• Number of paid orders versus refundable deposits.
• Revenue, valuation, margins and recurring cost of remote support.
• Privacy controls and operator-access practices beyond publicly described features.

11. Editorial assessment

1X has done something rare in humanoid robotics: it has published a consumer price, a deposit and a delivery window while acknowledging that the initial product has limited autonomy. Expert Mode is a pragmatic bridge between today’s models and the usefulness customers expect. It is also evidence that the product is an early-access learning system rather than an autonomous domestic worker.

The home is a difficult first market. Every room, object and household routine differs, and failures occur around people who are not trained robot operators. A soft, lighter robot reduces some physical risk, but privacy and service economics may be equally decisive. Remote human access can make the system capable sooner while making every unfamiliar chore more expensive and sensitive.

The company’s manufacturing investment and explicit sales model distinguish it from a research prototype. The unanswered test is delivery: whether 1X can ship reliable hardware, provide safe remote assistance and improve autonomy quickly enough that customers experience a useful product rather than participation in a prolonged development program.

12. Update history

• 2026-09-02: Initial company profile published with financing, product, preorder and factory information through the research date.

13. Related reporting

No related Embodied AI Insights articles have been assigned to this profile.

14. Sources & evidence

This profile relies primarily on 1X product, company, research and financing disclosures. EQT confirms the Series B, while reporting from Axios, TechCrunch and Tom’s Guide helps define the difference between agreements, demonstrations and autonomous capability. All supplier forecasts remain labeled as company claims. Full source descriptions and evidence handling appear in sources.md and research-ledger.md.

Sources — 1X company profile

Accessed: 2026-09-02

1. About 1X
   Publisher: 1X
   URL: https://www.1x.tech/about
   Publication date: Not stated
   Supports: founding history, product evolution, headquarters and current home-robot strategy.

2. Order NEO
   Publisher: 1X
   URL: https://www.1x.tech/order
   Publication date: Not stated
   Supports: price, subscription, deposit, delivery plan, basic autonomy and Expert Mode.

3. NEO Home Robot
   Publisher: 1X
   URL: https://www.1x.tech/discover/neo-home-robot
   Publication date: 2025
   Supports: product positioning, preorder availability, colors and international rollout plan.

4. 1X Raises $23.5M in Series A2 Funding Led by OpenAI
   Publisher: 1X
   URL: https://www.1x.tech/discover/1x-rasies-23-5m-in-series-a2-funding-led-by-open-ai
   Publication date: 2023-03-23
   Supports: Series A2 amount, investors and intended use.

5. Series B: 1X Secures $100M Funding
   Publisher: 1X
   URL: https://www.1x.tech/discover/1x-secures-100m-in-series-b-funding
   Publication date: 2024-01-13
   Supports: Series B amount, participants, secondary transaction and disclosed funding total.

6. Norwegian Robotics Startup 1X Secures $100M in Series B Funding Led by EQT Ventures
   Publisher: EQT
   URL: https://eqtgroup.com/thinq/early-stage/norwegian-robotics-startup-1x-secures-100m-in-series-b-funding-led-by-eqt-ventures
   Publication date: 2024-06-08
   Supports: investor confirmation of Series B and approximate funding total.

7. 1X World Model
   Publisher: 1X AI Team
   URL: https://www.1x.tech/discover/redwood-ai-world-model
   Publication date: 2025-06-16
   Supports: world-model purpose, inputs, evaluation approach and disclosed limitations.

8. Developing NEO’s AI Using NVIDIA’s Robotics Platform
   Publisher: 1X
   URL: https://www.1x.tech/discover/nvidia-gtc-2026
   Publication date: 2026-03-17
   Supports: simulation, training compute and onboard inference stack.

9. NEO’s Hands: An API to the Physical World
   Publisher: 1X
   URL: https://www.1x.tech/discover/neos-hands
   Publication date: 2026-07-09
   Supports: 25-degree-of-freedom hand design and company capability claims.

10. 1X Opens NEO Factory in Hayward, California
    Publisher: 1X Technologies via GlobeNewswire
    URL: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/04/30/3285118/0/en/1x-opens-neo-factory-in-hayward-ca-america-s-first-vertically-integrated-humanoid-robot-factory-with-consumer-shipments-planned-for-2026.html
    Publication date: 2026-04-30
    Supports: factory opening, stated capacity, initial unit destination, demand and shipment claims.

11. 1X Struck a Deal to Send Its ‘Home’ Humanoids to Factories and Warehouses
    Publisher: TechCrunch
    URL: https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/11/1x-struck-a-deal-to-send-its-home-humanoids-to-factories-and-warehouses/
    Publication date: 2025-12-11
    Supports: EQT framework context and privacy implications of remote operation.

12. Private Equity Giant EQT Discusses Its Humanoid Robot Rollout
    Publisher: Axios
    URL: https://www.axios.com/2025/12/16/eqt-private-equity-humanoid-robot-1x
    Publication date: 2025-12-16
    Supports: EQT statement that the memorandum is not a deployment or investment commitment.

13. The NEO Home Robot Has One Huge Problem
    Publisher: Tom’s Guide
    URL: https://www.tomsguide.com/home/smart-home/the-neo-home-robot-thats-breaking-the-internet-promises-to-change-the-world-but-theres-one-huge-problem
    Publication date: 2025-10-30
    Supports: independent assessment of demonstration autonomy and preorder risk.