If you think of an office as a place where people sit at desks typing on computers, Apptronik’s headquarters in an industrial park in Austin can be a bit of a shock. A man wearing a sensor-covered glove wiggles his fingers to control a disembodied metal hand sitting on a nearby table. A group huddles around a robotic torso, fiddling with its innards like surgeons. Two Apollo 3 robots, an unreleased version of the company’s flagship product, stand, powered-down and motionless, near the human-robot interaction department. Retired exoskeletons hang from harnesses near a side entrance. As Jeff Cardenas, the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer, walks me around, a humanoid robot ambles by in the opposite direction. It has a conspicuous swing to its hips. “It’s kind of strutting,” Cardenas marvels. “It’s a Texas robot. He just needs his cowboy hat and his boots.”

Full report : Humanoid robot maker Apptronik raised $1 billion at a $5 billion valuation, including from Mercedes-Benz, which has a handful of Apptronik’s Apollo robots in its factories.

For more see the OODA Company Profile on Apptronik.