Insider Brief
- Motion raised $2 million in pre-seed funding led by Extantia Capital, with participation from Norrsken Evolve, to move five humanoid robot pilots into full production and expand its Humanoids-as-a-Service model across the Benelux.
- The Brussels-based startup plans to grow its team and robot fleet toward hundreds of deployments across Europe over the next 12 months, targeting manufacturers facing labor shortages and difficulty filling machine and plant operator roles.
- Motion bundles robot selection, training, integration, financing, insurance, compliance, maintenance and fleet management into a monthly service, with current Belgian pilots covering crate loading, packing and conveyor-line tasks.
Motion has raised $2 million in pre-seed funding to expand its Humanoids-as-a-Service model to put humanoid robots to work across Europe.
Extantia Capital led the round, with participation from Norrsken Evolve, according to the Brussels-based startup. It will use the funding to expand its team and robot fleet as it moves beyond its current five pilot deployments to deployment of hundreds of robots across Europe over the next 12 months. The company is initially concentrating its expansion in the Benelux as it works to build a wider European deployment model for humanoid robots.
Motion pointed out that European manufacturers are struggling to fill industrial jobs and the company cited a 2026 ManpowerGroup survey of 39,000 employers that found 72% of manufacturers had difficulty filling roles, with machine and plant operators among the most widespread shortages.
“Europe has a robot adoption problem,” founder and CEO Alexander Stevens said in the announcement. “Adoption fails on financing, risk and compliance long before it fails on technology. So we take everything that stands between a factory and its first humanoid and turn it into one predictable monthly fee. Hiring a robot should be as easy as hiring a person.”
Stevens founded Motion in 2026 after he exited his previous company, ESG software provider Greenomy, last year. The service covers data collection, robot selection, task training, IT integration, fleet management, financing, insurance, regulatory compliance and maintenance.
Humanoids-as-a-Service
Motion said deploying humanoids involves more than acquiring the hardware. Robots must be trained for specific production tasks, integrated into existing workflows and IT systems, maintained and insured, while also meeting requirements under Europe’s Machinery Regulation and AI Act.
The company’s field deployment engineers work with customers from task selection through deployment on a production line, and Motion then manages the robots after deployment with monthly fees adjusting as customers increase or reduce the size of their fleets.
Motion pointed out that it is hardware-agnostic, allowing it to select different humanoid robots based on the application rather than tying customers to one manufacturer or robot design. That includes choosing between wheeled and legged systems and different types of grippers or hands.
Motion said customer data remains with individual customers on its European software layer, while deployment experience accumulated across its network can be applied to subsequent projects.
The startup currently has five pilots running with industrial, warehouse and logistics companies in Belgium. Its humanoid robots are being trained for tasks including loading goods into crates, packing containers into boxes and placing components onto conveyor belts alongside human workers. The company said it is working to move these pilots to full production with more robots.
Also, the startup said it is opening a partner program for system integrators and automation specialists, which will be able to deploy humanoids for their own customers using Motion’s platform.
Extantia Capital said Motion could help manufacturers overcome labor shortages and production constraints as Europe scales clean-energy technologies, while improving industrial efficiency and resilience. Norrsken Evolve said it backed Motion because of its broader approach to rebuilding Europe’s industrial workforce with robotics at the center.
Image credit: Motion