Here’s a deeper look at robotics startup and Apollo-maker Apptronik

Investing.com -- Apptronik, an Austin-based robotics startup, is gaining investor attention as a key player in humanoid robotics, according to Morgan Stanley. 

The company, which originated from the Human Centered Robotics Lab at the University of Texas at Austin, is now developing the Apollo humanoid robot for commercial and industrial applications.

“Apptronik builds everything from the hardware of the robot to the electronics, firmware, software, and all the control algorithms on top of that,” Morgan Stanley said, highlighting comments from CTO Dr. Nick Paine. 

The company was founded in 2016 and has worked on NASA’s Valkyrie humanoid, logistics arms, and military exoskeletons.

Morgan Stanley notes that Apptronik’s Apollo humanoid, first unveiled in 2023, is 5’8” tall, weighs 160 pounds, and can carry up to 55 pounds. 

It has a four-hour runtime per charge, powered by NVIDIA’s Jetson Orin system-on-modules, and features a hot-swappable battery. The robot’s safety system pauses movement if an object enters its impact radius, and operators can control and monitor robots via Apptronik’s proprietary software.

A significant aspect of Apptronik’s strategy is said to be its collaboration with Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) DeepMind and NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) under Project Gr00t. 

Google’s Gemini Robotics AI models are helping Apollo develop advanced reasoning, spatial awareness, and autonomous control. 

“Using Gemini 2.0’s world understanding, it can generalize to novel situations and solve a wide variety of tasks out of the box,” Morgan Stanley noted.

Apptronik recently completed a $403 million Series A funding round, with backing from Google and Mercedes-Benz (OTC:MBGAF). 

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While the company remains privately held, Morgan Stanley emphasized that public investors should pay attention to its technological innovations as part of the broader humanoid robotics value chain.

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