Building human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots
HQ: Vancouver, BC, Canada | Founded: 2018 | Employees: ~145 (2026, +25% YoY) | Stage: Early Stage VC (Series A+ / strategic rounds) | Website: https://www.sanctuary.ai
Sanctuary AI was founded in 2018 in Vancouver by Geordie Rose (co-founder of D-Wave Systems and Kindred AI), Suzanne Gildert, Olivia Norton, and Ajay Agrawal, with the audacious mission of creating 'the world's first human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots.' Unlike industrial-robot arms, Sanctuary attacked the hardest problem first: a bipedal general-purpose humanoid with human-scale dexterity.
The Phoenix humanoid (Gen 6, May 2023) stood 5'7", weighed 155 lbs, and featured ~20-degree-of-freedom hydraulic hands with tactile sensing. In January 2023 Sanctuary achieved the first commercial deployment of a general-purpose humanoid: Phoenix performing stocking, folding, and 110 retail tasks at a Mark's/Canadian Tire location in Langley, BC. Gen 7 (April 2024) learned new tasks in under 24 hours; Gen 8 (December 2024) pivoted to a more robust wheeled base after acknowledging bipedal legs were not yet reliable. The company's dexterous hydraulic hands (tagged #DexterousHand) remain among the most capable in the industry.
Sanctuary's capital story is strategic-and-government-heavy: a C$75.5M Series A in March 2022 (Bell, Magna, Verizon Ventures, Workday Ventures, EV, EDC, SE Health), a C$30M Strategic Innovation Fund award from the Government of Canada (2022), investments from Accenture (2024) and a second investment plus strategic alliance from Magna (2024); BDC Capital and InBC brought total disclosed funding to 'over $140M' (2024), with a further convertible note in 2025 and a Zeon Ventures round in May 2026. In 2024 the board ousted founder-CEO Geordie Rose and cut ~30 roles, sold its majority stake in Apptronik (~$125M), and in June 2026 installed former MDA (Canadarm2) CEO Daniel Friedmann as CEO.
Under Friedmann, Sanctuary has repositioned from selling humanoids to selling 'Physical AI': its Carbon autonomy software now deploys on FANUC and Universal Robots industrial arms with custom end effectors, achieving production-ready results (99.5%+ success, 2.54-second cycle on a wire-plugging task) at an unnamed Tier 1 automotive supplier — with Sanctuary hands as an optional future config. It is simultaneously developing its dexterous manipulation tech and a Fast-Follow humanoid strategy, counting Magna (manufacturing/automotive), Accenture (Industry X deployment), Microsoft (collaboration), Zeon (elastomeric materials), and Canadian government defense R&D among its partners.
Sanctuary AI is a pioneer of dexterous humanoid robotics that has had to survive the brutal capital asymmetry of its category: it built the first commercially deployed humanoid (Mark's/Canadian Tire, 2023) and owns a world-class dexterous-hand and physical-AI IP position, yet operates on roughly $140–150M raised versus competitors at $1B+ (Figure, 1X, Agility). The story in 2025–26 is a strategic reset: a new CEO (Daniel Friedmann, ex-MDA/Canadarm2), the sale of its Apptronik stake for ~$125M, and a hardware-agnostic 'Physical AI' pitch that deploys its autonomy software on FANUC and Universal Robots arms at automotive Tier-1 sites (99.5% success rates). The bull case is that General-Purpose AI for physical work is the moat, and hands-plus-software makes Sanctuary the 'brains' provider across robot makers; the bear case is that Category leaders with 10x the capital and faster timelines could define the market before Sanctuary scales.
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