K-Scale Labs
Open-source humanoid robot maker — K-Scale OS (Kos), Stompy and KBot humanoids. YC W24. Pitched as the 'open-source humanoid' alternative to Figure / Tesla — full hardware + software OSS.
Stale · Verified 2026-10-27 · fresh as of 2026-10-27 · 38 cited facts, 4 with a third-party source · 1 recorded change · Suggest a correction
At a glance
- Type
- Open-source humanoid + OS — Y Combinator W24 vendor fix
- Tier
- T3
- Created
- 2024 (YC W24) vendor fix
- Latest release
- v0.3.18 (2025-09-04) — kscale SDK registry fix
- GitHub
- kscalelabs/kos — ~75 stars, last commit 2025-05 repo fix
- Pricing
- Hardware kits ($8-16k range); OS free vendor fix
- Funding
- YC W24 (~$500k); additional seed reported third-party fix
- Freshness
- 2026-10-27 fix
- Layer
- large-models repo fix
- Licensing
- open-source repo fix
- Developer activity
- OpenRank 0.45 (12-mo avg 1.21) · 5 participants — 2025-05 third-party fix
When to use
Optimised for: Open-source humanoid for hobbyist + research
Anti-fit: Tiny team; hardware quality vs Tesla/Figure unclear; community-grade
Pros & cons
Pros
Full OSS humanoid hardware + software; YC-backed; community angle is unique.
Cons
Tiny team; hardware quality unproven; commercial maturity early.
Claims & capabilities
YC W24; OSS humanoid hardware + software; KBot demo + Stompy
Technical surface
- API surface
- Python + ROS / kos APIs
- Backend storage
- Caller-managed
- Deployment
- Hardware ships; OS self-host
- Embedding model
- not applicable — not a memory product
- Multi-tenancy
- Single-tenant per robot
- MCP
- not applicable — wrong section
- A2A
- not applicable — wrong section
- OpenTelemetry
- not applicable — wrong section
Similar systems
Other robotics foundation models & agent stacks in the catalog, ranked by inbound references.
- Google DeepMind Gemini Robotics T1
Google DeepMind's Gemini Robotics + Gemini Robotics-ER (Embodied Reasoning) released Mar-2025. VLA models built on Gemini 2.0 backbone. Reference platform: Apptronik Apollo. The DeepMind line of robotics-FM, descendant of earlier RT-1 / RT-2 / RT-X work.
- Physical Intelligence (π) T1
Founded 2024 by Sergey Levine (UC Berkeley) and Karol Hausman + others (ex-Google Brain Robotics). Building general-purpose robot foundation models (π0 released Oct-2024; π0.5 in 2025) trained on cross-embodiment robot trajectories. Raised $400M Series A (Nov-2024; Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, Thrive, Lux) at $2.4B val. Released π0.7 (2026-04-16) and opened its models through the Pi API beta (2026-10-13).
- 1X Technologies T2
Norway / US humanoid robot company — Eve (wheeled bimanual) + Neo (legged humanoid, consumer-targeted, late 2025 / 2026 launch). Raised $100M Series B (Jan-2024, EQT + OpenAI Startup Fund); $40M Series A (Mar-2023, OpenAI lead). Distinguishing feature: consumer-home positioning rather than industrial.
- Agility Robotics T2
Oregon-based humanoid maker; Digit is in production at GXO Logistics warehouses since Sep-2024 — claimed first humanoid in commercial service in the US. Spinout of Oregon State University. $400M+ raised (Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund participant).
- Apptronik T2
Apollo humanoid maker, spun out of University of Texas Human Centered Robotics Lab. Raised $350M Series A (Feb-2025; B Capital + Capital Factory); Mercedes-Benz manufacturing partner (Mar 2024). Partnered with Google DeepMind on Gemini Robotics (Mar 2025) — Apollo is the headline reference platform for Gemini Robotics.
- Collaborative Robotics T3
Founded 2022 by Brad Porter (ex-Amazon Robotics VP + Scale AI CTO). Stealthier than the humanoid pack; raised $100M Series B Apr-2024 (General Catalyst). Targets warehouse + healthcare collaborative robots.
Sources (37 cited facts, 4 third-party)
Each fact links to the page it came from; the badge says who published it (how to read sources).
- What it is Open-source humanoid + OS — Y Combinator W24 vendor
- What it does & what's distinct Open-source humanoid robot maker — K-Scale OS (Kos), Stompy and KBot humanoids. YC W24. … vendor
- Claims / benefits YC W24; OSS humanoid hardware + software; KBot demo + Stompy vendor
- Modalities vision + bipedal action vendor
- Created 2024 (YC W24) vendor
- Latest release v0.3.18 (2025-09-04) — kscale SDK registry
- License MIT (kos); K-Bot software GPL-3.0, hardware CERN-OHL-S repo
- GitHub kscalelabs/kos — ~75 stars, last commit 2025-05 repo
- Mindshare OSS humanoid; YC distribution; HN posts vendor
- Funding YC W24 (~$500k); additional seed reported third-party
- Customers / scale OSS users + early commercial pilots; pre-orders for KBot vendor
- Pricing Hardware kits ($8-16k range); OS free vendor
- Data handling OSS — your infra vendor
- Deployment Hardware ships; OS self-host vendor
- HQ US (Bay Area; YC) vendor
- Founders / pedigree Benjamin Bolte (CEO) + co-founders third-party
- Reproducibility Full OSS — hardware + software repo
- Code/weights release OSS MIT — github.com/kscalelabs repo
- API surface Python + ROS / kos APIs vendor
- Backend storage Caller-managed repo
- Multi-tenancy Single-tenant per robot vendor
- Encryption OSS — caller-controlled vendor
- Versioning kos v-versioning repo
- Namespace primitives per-robot repo
- Import / export Full OSS — portable repo
- Validated verticals education / research / community humanoid vendor
- Time to running Days-weeks (hardware build + OS install) vendor
- Anti-fit Tiny team; hardware quality vs Tesla/Figure unclear; community-grade vendor
- Optimised for Open-source humanoid for hobbyist + research vendor
- Adjacent infrastructure ROS; LeRobot adjacency; YC ecosystem vendor
- Pros Full OSS humanoid hardware + software; YC-backed; community angle is unique. vendor
- Cons Tiny team; hardware quality unproven; commercial maturity early. vendor
- Project & sources kscale.dev; github.com/kscalelabs vendor
- adoption-accelerator yc-w24 third-party
- licensing-bucket open-source repo
- taxonomy-three-layer-rollup large-models repo
- developer-activity-opendigger {"activity":8.73,"as_of":"2025-05","openrank_12mo":1.21,"openrank_current":0.45,"partici… third-party
What changed
Changes to this record's lifecycle, licence, release, pricing and hosting facts, from the catalog's git history. Subscribe (Atom)