Formic, a Chicago robots-as-a-service company that rents factory robots to manufacturers for a monthly fee, said on Thursday it has raised $50 million. The money is a mix of a Series B equity round led by Mercato Partners and debt from S2G Investments, and Formic says it will use it to move from palletizers and case packers into general-purpose robots, humanoids included.
The pitch is the interesting part. Formic isn’t claiming a better robot. It’s claiming that the hard part of physical AI is getting robots installed, paid for and kept running in real plants, and that a company that already does that for palletizers is well placed to do it for whatever comes next.
- What happened: On October 22, 2026, Formic announced $50 million in growth capital: a Series B led by Mercato Partners (with Light Ray Ventures, Lightscape Partners, Citi and others) plus debt financing from S2G Investments. It didn’t say how much was equity and how much was debt.
- How Formic charges: One flat monthly fee covering the robot, software, installation, maintenance, financing and monitoring, with no upfront capital. Formic doesn’t publish what that fee is.
- What’s next: General-purpose robots on the same monthly model. Formic’s site says humanoid pilots run with select customers through 2026–2027, scoped to one task, one cell and one shift.
- The catch: The scale numbers (100+ facilities, 99.6% uptime, 97% renewals) are Formic’s own and haven’t been independently audited. The humanoid in its launch photo is unnamed, and no humanoid is in production at a customer yet.
What Formic’s $50 million raise includes
According to Formic’s announcement, the $50 million combines the Mercato-led Series B, with participation from Light Ray Ventures, Lightscape Partners, Citi and “other new and existing investors,” and a debt facility from S2G Investments. Ryan Sanders, a managing director at Mercato, joins Formic’s board. Formic didn’t disclose a valuation or the split between equity and debt. Axios Pro reported the deal the same day.
The debt piece matters more here than it would at a software startup. Formic owns the robots it puts in customers’ plants, so every new deployment is equipment it has to finance before the monthly payments come back. Its last disclosed raise, in June 2024, was a $27.4 million Series A extension led by Blackhorn Ventures, which took the Series A past $52 million. That round came with a separate deal with Mitsubishi HC Capital America to help finance the robots.
How Formic’s robots-as-a-service model works
Formic sells outcomes rather than machines. Its release describes one recurring monthly payment that bundles “equipment, deployment software, field operations, maintenance, financing, and performance monitoring,” with no upfront capital from the customer. The homepage sums it up as “$0 CapEx” and a 12-week average lead time. Today’s applications are end-of-line jobs: palletizing, case packing, pallet wrapping, machine tending for CNC mills and lathes, and pallet-moving mobile robots.
What Formic doesn’t publish is a price. There’s no rate card on the site, just “one fixed monthly price” and an on-site evaluation form. The model has also shifted. In 2024, Formic said customers paid “a low hourly rate”; Thursday’s release talks about “one flat monthly rate.” If you’re a plant manager comparing it to buying a palletizer outright, you’ll need a quote.
“Building a capable robot and making it productive in a real factory are two very different challenges,” Saman Farid, Formic’s founder and CEO, said in the release. Sanders put the investor’s version more bluntly: “As robots get smarter, the bottleneck moves from the lab to the loading dock: deploying, servicing and financing robots in real plants.”
The scale numbers are Formic’s own
Formic says it runs hundreds of robots across more than 100 facilities in over 30 states, has logged more than 750,000 hours of live production, runs at 99.6% uptime and keeps 97% of customers at renewal. It also says it now gets robots into production about three times faster than a year ago. None of those figures has been independently audited, and Formic didn’t give a robot count or revenue.
There’s one useful cross-check. In its June 2024 release, Formic said its fleet had completed 100,000 production hours in two and a half years. Going from there to 750,000 hours by October 2026 would mean the fleet has grown a lot. The uptime figure is harder to pin down: the live counter on Formic’s homepage showed 99.30% uptime over the last 12 months when we checked on Sunday, a bit below the 99.6% in the release. The two may cover different periods, but Formic doesn’t say. The 97% renewal rate isn’t new either. The 2024 release listed the same figure.
Humanoid pilots: one task, one cell, one shift
The release’s lead photo shows a humanoid robot case-packing bagged product next to a Formic palletizer, which Formic calls “an early look” at its general-purpose plans. Formic doesn’t say whose humanoid it is.
Its humanoids page is more candid than most. It says Formic is running humanoid pilots with select customers across 2026–2027, scoped “narrowly (one task, one cell, one shift)” and expanded only once the platform proves the economics. Formic estimates 60 to 90 days from scoping to first production cycles, then another 30 to 60 days to scale up. Pilots are billed on the same monthly model, so the customer doesn’t have capital at risk if the robot doesn’t work out.
Two details stand out. First, Formic says two-armed mobile robots are already running production cycles in pilots, with humanoids “close behind.” On Formic’s own timeline, then, two arms on a wheeled base are ahead of a full humanoid. Second, the monthly fee includes “24/7 monitoring, support, and teleoperation intervention as necessary.” In other words, a remote human can step in when the robot gets stuck. That’s a sensible way to run a pilot, but it means early “autonomous” output will include some human help, and Formic hasn’t said how much.
The Physical Intelligence connection
Formic says it’s working with Physical Intelligence, combining that lab’s robot foundation models with Formic’s production data to adapt them for manufacturing. Formic was one of the companies named on the showcase page when Physical Intelligence opened its Pi API beta. Neither company has said what the work involves, which robots it runs on, or whether money changes hands.
Formic’s argument for why it matters is data. Every robot in its fleet works in a real plant, logging tasks, conditions and corrections, and Formic says that record can help train general-purpose systems. The homepage counter claimed 645,520 hours of training data when we looked. How much of that is useful for teaching a humanoid to pack a box, as opposed to a fixed arm stacking cases, is an open question.
Where the robots get built
Formic assembles and tests its robots at a facility in Bolingbrook, Illinois, and develops new capabilities at an R&D center in Oakland, California. It opened the Bolingbrook site, a 53,000-square-foot headquarters it says is five times the size of its previous space, on June 11, and showed off palletizing, case packing, pallet wrapping and machine tending on the floor.
The new money is also meant to push Formic into metal fabrication and deeper into aerospace, space, defense, medical and energy customers. Its homepage lists expanded metal fab, autonomous quality inspection and “humanoid robots in production” as coming in 2026 and 2027.
What to watch next
The real proof will be a named customer running a humanoid or bimanual robot in production at a published monthly price, with numbers on how often a remote operator steps in. Until then, Formic’s raise is a bet that the companies already servicing robots in American factories, not the ones building the flashiest machines, end up deciding how fast humanoids reach the floor. It’s a reasonable bet, and so far Formic is only asking customers to risk one cell on it.
Frequently asked questions
How much did Formic raise?
$50 million, announced October 22, 2026. It combines a Series B led by Mercato Partners, with Light Ray Ventures, Lightscape Partners, Citi and other investors, and debt financing from S2G Investments. Formic didn’t disclose the split or a valuation.
What is Formic’s robots-as-a-service model?
Formic installs and owns the robots and charges one flat monthly fee that covers equipment, software, deployment, maintenance, financing and monitoring. The customer pays no upfront capital. In 2024 Formic described the fee as an hourly rate.
How much does Formic cost?
Formic doesn’t publish prices. Its site promises “$0 CapEx” and one fixed monthly price, but you have to book an on-site evaluation to get a quote.
Does Formic use humanoid robots?
Only in pilots so far. Formic says it’s running humanoid pilots with select customers in 2026–2027, each limited to one task, one cell and one shift, and that two-armed mobile robots are already running production cycles in pilots. It hasn’t named the humanoid in its launch photo.
What does Formic have to do with Physical Intelligence?
Formic says it’s working with Physical Intelligence to adapt that company’s robot foundation models for manufacturing using Formic’s production data. Formic was named on the showcase page for Physical Intelligence’s Pi API beta. Neither has disclosed terms.
Sources
- Formic via Business Wire, “Formic Raises $50 Million to Scale Physical AI Across American Manufacturing” (October 22, 2026; investors, S2G debt, RaaS model, 100+ facilities, 30+ states, 750,000+ hours, 99.6% uptime, 97% renewal, 3x faster deployment, Physical Intelligence, Bolingbrook and Oakland, Farid, Sanders and Sweeney quotes, humanoid photo caption): businesswire.com
- Axios Pro, “Formic raises $50M to expand robotics deployments in factories” (October 22, 2026): axios.com
- Formic, homepage (“$0 CapEx,” 12-week lead time, one fixed monthly price, live counters including 99.30% 12-month uptime and 645,520 hours of training data as viewed October 25, 2026; 2026–2027 roadmap): formic.co
- Formic, Humanoids page (pilots across 2026–2027, one task/one cell/one shift, 60–90 day pilot timeline, bimanual mobile robots, teleoperation intervention included): formic.co/solutions/humanoids
- Formic via Business Wire, “Formic Raises $27.4 Million to Bring Automation to More Manufacturers” (June 25, 2024; Blackhorn Ventures, Series A over $52 million, hourly rate, 100,000 production hours, 97% renewal, Mitsubishi HC Capital America): businesswire.com
- Formic on YouTube, “Inside Formic’s New 53,000 Sq Ft Robotics Headquarters | Bolingbrook Grand Opening” (June 2026; June 11 opening, five times previous space): youtube.com/watch?v=D1d_whzOG-M
- The Next Web, “Formic raises $50M to bring general-purpose robots to US factories” (October 23, 2026): thenextweb.com
All sources accessed October 25, 2026, between about 10:00 and 11:00 AM ET.
Last updated: October 25, 2026. To report an error, see our corrections page. Articles are drafted with AI assistance and reviewed and edited by an editor; see our editorial policy.
