The Nvidia-backed humanoid robot maker Agility Robotics (NASDAQ: AGLT) made its trading debut on the Nasdaq as markets opened on November 5.

Arranged through a $465 million SPAC merger, the listing makes Agility the first publicly traded company in the United States with humanoid robots as its core business. The milestone comes roughly three months after China's Unitree went public at a valuation nearly 20 times that of the US humanoid robot maker. It also gives public-market investors a first direct window into the commercial progress of the US humanoid robotics sector.

How Agility went public

Agility's first trading day follows a reverse merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI, a special purpose acquisition company run by financier Michael Klein. SPACs list as cash shells first and then merge with a private target, a route to public markets that skips the traditional IPO process. The companies confirmed the completion of the business combination in an official announcement. Pre-money equity was set at $2.5 billion, and the combined company trades under the AGLT and AGLTW tickers after Churchill XI moved on from its old symbols when the deal closed.

The transaction and related financings brought in $465 million in gross capital before expenses, broken down as:

• $164 million from the SPAC trust, the pool of cash Churchill XI raised in its own listing
• $201 million from a Foxconn-led private placement
• $100 million raised earlier

No insiders sold on the way in; existing shareholders' equity was rolled into the new entity.

Agility is backed by Nvidia, Amazon and SoftBank, and plans to standardize the onboard computing of its next robot using Nvidia's IGX Thor platform. Foxconn's $201 million commitment also signals the stakes that one of the world's largest contract manufacturers holds in the firm.

Comparing Agility with Unitree

Unitree was worth roughly $50 billion by the end of the morning session of its first trading day on Shanghai's STAR Market in August, a valuation driven by a 629% price surge on that first day. The Hangzhou-based company went public as an already profitable robot maker backed by Alibaba, DeepSeek and Tencent.

Agility, by contrast, reported $1.8 million in revenue for 2025 and estimates this year's operating loss at between $138 million and $140 million. As a listed company, those figures will now surface in regular quarterly disclosures, giving outsiders a running view of whether committed orders convert into shipped robots and booked revenue.

The company is, however, pointing to its order book. Humanoid makers broadly pitch their machines as able to work in facilities designed around people, without retooling existing workflows. Its flagship Digit robot has logged more than 65,000 operating hours at customers including GXO, Schaeffler, Toyota and Amazon. Agility said the next-generation Digit 5, unveiled in September, holds more than $300 million in committed multi-year orders, a figure that depends on contractual milestones and product specifications.

CEO Peggy Johnson, a former Magic Leap, Microsoft and Qualcomm executive, framed the listing around factory floors rather than markets. "Today marks an important milestone for Agility, but the bigger story is what it means for the future of work," she said in the company's statement.

Agility intends to spend the new capital scaling production at RoboFab, its 70,000-square-foot Salem plant designed for up to 10,000 robots a year. Early customer access to Digit 5 is expected in the first half of 2027, with general availability targeted for the end of that year. Milestones to watch from here include RoboFab's ramp toward its design capacity and how the Digit 5 order book converts as early customer access begins in the first half of 2027.