A Brussels startup that leases humanoid robots to European factories has raised $2 million from climate-focused investors betting that the continent's manufacturers will pay monthly fees to solve their labor crisis. Motion announced the pre-seed round on August 27, 2026, led by Extantia Capital with participation from Norrsken Evolve.
The deal arrives as European manufacturers face what amounts to a hiring emergency. Seventy-two percent report difficulty filling positions, according to TechFundingNews citing a 2026 ManpowerGroup survey. Meanwhile, global humanoid robotics startups pulled in $8.6 billion in 2025, nearly double 2024's total, according to TechFundingNews citing Dealroom data.
Motion's pitch centers on removing friction. Rather than asking factories to buy humanoids outright, the company bundles everything into 36-month operating contracts: hardware, training, maintenance, insurance. Factories pay a monthly fee. The robots themselves come from multiple manufacturers, which Motion sources and integrates according to its website. The startup also handles the thicket of European Union safety compliance on behalf of customers.
Customer data stays on European servers. After three years, clients can buy out their leased units if they choose. Motion has published blog posts emphasizing what it calls simulation-to-real training and risk pricing, though the company has not detailed how those pricing models work in practice.
CEO Alexander L.C. Stevens brings at least one exit to the table. He previously founded Greenomy, an ESG and corporate sustainability reporting platform that Position Green acquired in September 2025, according to a LinkedIn post by Position Green's CEO and a Signalbase M&A note from that month.
Motion is currently running five paid pilots in Belgian factories, TechFundingNews reported. The company said it plans to convert those tests into full deployments and scale to hundreds of robots across the Benelux region within the year. "Hiring a robot should be as easy as hiring a person," Stevens said.
The climate angle matters to Motion's backers. Extantia Capital, a venture firm founded in 2020 that invests from seed to Series A, focuses explicitly on climate solutions. Norrsken Evolve runs a pre-seed program centered on sustainability and resilience. "By backing Motion, Extantia is investing in the infrastructure needed to scale climate technologies faster," said Yair Reem, a partner at Extantia. Alex Bakir, general partner at Norrsken Evolve, framed the bet in demographic terms, saying rebuilding Europe's labor force is essential.
Motion faces competition from better-capitalized players. Agility Robotics rents its Digit humanoid at roughly $30 per hour, according to TechFundingNews. Figure, Apptronik, and NEURA Robotics also operate in the space. NEURA Robotics is described by TechFundingNews as Europe's most-funded humanoid robotics company.
Goldman Sachs projects annual shipments of more than 250,000 humanoid robots by 2030, driven by logistics, manufacturing, and warehouse operators grappling with labor shortages and wage inflation, according to research cited by TechFundingNews. Whether that forecast materializes depends partly on whether startups like Motion can prove the economics work at scale.
The Benelux region offers a testing ground with depth. Automotive, logistics, and food-processing sectors run through the corridor, and Motion's monthly leasing model targets a specific pain point. Commercial humanoids often cost well into six figures per unit as outright purchases, a barrier that subscription pricing aims to lower.
Motion said the $2 million will go toward expanding its robot fleet and building the operations infrastructure needed to move from pilot programs to production-scale deployments. Whether five pilots can become hundreds of units in a year remains the question investors are paying to answer.
