Kinisi 01

Kinisi (formerly KR1) is a wheeled humanoid that picks, places, sorts and moves goods in warehouses, factories and hotels. It was built by Kinisi Robotics, which Bear Robotics, maker of the Servi restaurant robots, agreed to acquire in June 2026.

History and launch

Kinisi Robotics was founded by Brennand Pierce, a co-founder of Bear Robotics. Its KR1 was unveiled in July 2025 as a low-cost, two-handed manipulator on wheels for flat warehouse floors.

On June 22, 2026 Bear Robotics announced a definitive agreement to acquire Kinisi. On closing, the robot, the Bristol engineering team and the AI models fold into Bear, with Pierce returning as Chief Robotics Officer. Bear now markets the robot as Kinisi within its fleet.

Design and hardware

There are no legs: a two-armed torso sits on an autonomous omnidirectional base. In November 2025 Interesting Engineering described the KR1 with a 10 kg payload, speeds up to 2.4 m/s, a hot-swappable 48 V lithium-ion pack good for 6 to 8 hours, wave-gear actuators, stereo depth cameras, a 180° lidar array and NVIDIA Jetson compute, plus modular end effectors including vacuum tools.

Bear's current product page lists speeds up to 14.4 km/h (4 m/s), a full shift per battery and IP65 protection against dust and splashes, while payload, reach and base details are "to be confirmed at launch". The two sources therefore disagree on top speed.

Software and AI

Kinisi brings its own vision-language-action (VLA) model and a robot foundation model. Tasks are taught by demonstration, and the company built a low-cost, robot-agnostic glove to capture human hand demonstrations. Navigation has used Bear's production stack from the start, and the fleet is orchestrated by the Bear Universe cloud, so a skill learned by one robot can be shared with the rest.

Applications and deployments

Bear targets warehousing and 3PL logistics (picking, sorting, kitting), manufacturing (machine tending, line-side handling) and recycling. Bear says the robot is already sorting glass by shape, size and material in live deployments; customers have not been named.

Manufacturer

Bear Robotics was founded in Silicon Valley in 2017 by CEO John Ha and has shipped more than 16,000 service robots across North America, Europe and Asia. The Kinisi team is based in Bristol, UK, which remains Bear's European engineering hub. Deal terms were not disclosed.

Price and availability

No price has been published. Bear offers sales consultations and pilots, including for customers already running its other robots.

Timeline

• 2025-07 KR1 wheeled humanoid unveiled
• 2026-06 Bear Robotics announces acquisition of Kinisi Robotics
• 2026 Robot offered by Bear under the Kinisi name

Sources

1. Kinisi: Wheeled Humanoid Robot for Warehouses & Factories, Bear Robotics (2026)
2. Bear Robotics to Acquire Kinisi Robotics, Completing Its End-to-End Physical AI Robotics Platform, Bear Robotics (2026-06-22)
3. Bear Robotics acquires Kinisi Robotics to boost its physical AI capabilities, The Robot Report (2026-06)
4. Humanoid robot KR1 from Kinisi, Interesting Engineering (2025-11-26)

Updated: 2026-10-10

Compared with the catalogue

• It is one of 2 Kinisi Robotics models in the catalogue and one of 43 humanoids from USA.

Capabilities