Agility shareholders back $2.5B SPAC as humanoid robot cash shrinks to $465M

More than 84% of votes cast at the special meeting backed the deal, according to The Robot Report. The SPAC is expected to close on 4 November, with trading due to start on 5 November. Churchill Capital stock closed up nearly 14% on 2 November.

The money is smaller than advertised. The transaction should now hand Agility roughly $465 million in gross capital before expenses. That is down from the more than $620 million projected when the merger was announced in June. The Robot Report broke down the revised figure on 30 October. About $164 million comes from Churchill's trust account, about $201 million from a PIPE led by Foxconn, and $100 million in equity Agility raised after the initial announcement. The original deal valued Agility at a $2.5 billion pre-money equity value. Existing shareholders roll their equity into the combined company rather than taking cash.

For a humanoid company, the pitch is no longer the demo video. It is the deployment count.

Agility says Digit robots already work in 9 customer environments. Logistics and manufacturing are the main commercial markets. The longest-running relationship is with GXO Logistics, which began working with Agility in 2023. In 2024 the two signed a multi-year Robots-as-a-Service agreement for Digit at GXO's Flowery Branch, Georgia facility, where the robot moves totes onto conveyors. In October the companies announced an expansion to GXO sites in Statesville, North Carolina and Lebanon, Tennessee. Deployments there are expected in early 2027 on Digit 4, before a move to Digit 5.

Manufacturing is next. Agricultural equipment maker AGCO signed a commercial agreement in October to pilot Digit at its Hesston, Kansas production facility starting in 2027. Initial tasks include sorting and stacking parts and placing totes for storage. Agility has also claimed more than $300 million in committed multi-year orders for Digit 5, the next-generation machine unveiled in September. Early customer access is expected in the first half of 2027, with general availability targeted for the end of that year. The Robot Report cautions that the multi-year figure is not current revenue. It depends on contractual milestones and product specifications.

The listing lands in a changed policy climate. On 29 October, Ars Technica reported that President Trump declared robot imports a national security threat. The Robot Report covered the White House's Section 232 determination on foreign-made robots the same day. Neither outlet's headline says what duties, if any, follow. The cost impact on a US assembler buying foreign components is therefore not yet clear.

Competitors are moving on the same ground. Xpeng's vice president Gu Jie said on 28 October that solid-state batteries for its Iron humanoid had entered small-batch production, per CnEVPost. The robot itself stays in pre-production ahead of a planned year-end mass-production start and 2027 deliveries. In Paris, Bleu Robotics raised a €5 million pre-seed led by Contrarian Ventures and OVNI Capital, Sifted reported on 29 October. The company pitches factory deployment after about 20 minutes of training. On 28 October, Tom's Hardware showed JR East testing a rail truck-mounted machine with chainsaw and grabber arms. It is remotely operated for now and clears branches from tracks.

At the consumer end, the numbers are still thin. Heise reported on 3 November that the RoboterAtlas database listed 49 humanoid robots from 41 companies as of the end of October. Of those, 26 were Chinese, ten American and three German. 28 were aimed at businesses and 18 at research and education. Only 16 were pitched at private households.

Agility's next test is the one public markets apply. Do 9 customer sites and a $465 million balance sheet read as a business, not a roadmap?