{"id":355067,"date":"2026-03-30T11:11:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T11:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/355067\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T11:11:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T11:11:14","slug":"amazon-buys-fauna-robotics-maker-of-the-sprout-humanoid-robot-that-can-dance-and-pick-up-toys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/355067\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon buys Fauna Robotics, maker of the Sprout humanoid robot that can dance and pick up toys"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazon<\/a> has acquired Fauna Robotics, just under two months after the startup introduced a\u00a0humanoid robot called Sprout<\/a> designed to be a friendly addition to social spaces like homes and schools.<\/p>\n

The e-commerce giant is already a robotics powerhouse, having boasted of deploying more than 1 million robots across its warehouse operations, but bringing the 3.5-foot-tall, rectangular-headed Sprout on board adds a robot that\u2019s more about fun interactions than heavy lifting.<\/p>\n

Fauna CEO Rob Cochran said on social media he was \u201cincredibly excited to share that Fauna Robotics has officially joined the Amazon family\u201d and said the New York-based firm will now \u201coperate as Fauna Robotics, an Amazon company.\u201d<\/p>\n

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.<\/p>\n

Amazon said the company\u2019s founders and employees will join Amazon in New York and will be looking for \u201cnew ways to make our customers\u2019 lives better and easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fauna\u2019s debut product, launched in January, is a software developer platform more than just a robot, sold to academic and corporate research laboratories that are exploring robotics in the home. Early customers included Disney<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The $50,000 Sprout can\u2019t lift heavy objects, but it can dance the Twist or the Floss, grab a toy block or teddy bear, or hoist itself from a chair and take a stroll.<\/p>\n

Amazon, which also makes the artificial intelligence assistant Alexa that\u2019s already present in many homes, has had some challenges in recent years in expanding into consumer robotics.<\/p>\n

Amazon called off its\u00a0purchase of robot vacuum maker iRobot<\/a>\u00a0in 2024 after facing regulatory hurdles in Europe and the United States.<\/p>\n

In 2001, Fortune first convened \u201cThe Smartest People We Know,\u201d bringing together CEOs and founders, builders and investors, thinkers and doers. Since then, Fortune Brainstorm Tech has been the place where bold ideas collide. From June 8\u201310, we will return to Aspen\u2014where it all began\u2014to mark 25 years of Brainstorm. Register now<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amazon has acquired Fauna Robotics, just under two months after the startup introduced a\u00a0humanoid robot called Sprout designed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,111,139,69,11393,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-355067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-robots","15":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}