The most innovative companies in robotics and engineering for 2025

Given all of the attention it’s been getting recently, robotics may seem like a brand-new industry. But two of the firms on our list have been around for decades—and one is a conglomerate of companies that date back to the 19th century. But there’s no question that the industry, powered by breakthroughs in technology, has accelerated in recent years. The total global robotics market will exceed $100 billion in 2025, up from about $17 billion a decade ago.

The companies on this list can be divided into two general categories: those producing robots that work inside and those that work outdoors. In the former group, machines that build other machines—see the longtime Japanese robotics firm FANUC and the startup Apptronik—remain a vibrant segment. So do warehouse and retail robots like those made by Osaro and Simbe. Simbe’s Tally robots serve as eyes for both retailers and the brands in those stores, tracking inventory in real time.

Companies putting robots to work outside the climate-controlled spaces of factories, warehouses, and stores arguably have a more difficult job. Percepto’s drones must fly near industrial and energy facilities to perform safety inspections, while CNH’s robotic agricultural equipment logs long hours on farms. Flock Safety, meanwhile, builds “public-safety drones” that can alert law enforcement to crimes and track suspects.

Performance Drone Works and Saronic belong in their own category. Their aerial and naval military drones operate in lethal environments and risk becoming the targets of hostile drones.

1. Simbe Robotics

For turning its shopkeeping robots into retail analysts

According to the research firm IHL Group, inventory inefficiencies cost the retail industry more than $1.7 trillion in 2023. Simbe has been tackling the problem since 2015, when it introduced its first Tally robot to automate some of the most tedious tasks in retail (scanning store shelves to conduct product audits). Tally traverses the aisles of stores to perform machine-vision inventories of the shelves and floor displays, delivering real-time data to store employees about inaccurately priced products and stock shortages. In January 2024, Simbe introduced its robots into a wholesale environment for the first time: A new version of Tally, developed in partnership with BJ’s Wholesale, adds longer-range vision and pallet analysis tools that can handle taller warehouse stacks. Simbe is also taking its Tally bots into farm supply stores through a new partnership with Country Supplier, which is deploying Simbe technology in C-A-L Ranch and Coastal Farm & Ranch stores across six states.

But Simbe isn’t just offering retailers greater insight and efficiency; it’s now focused on helping brands themselves. Simbe started offering retailers the option to sell data that its robots collect. Its new brand-insights platform, launched in October, delivers product-level data to the brands that retail partners carry. Already, grocery chain Schnucks uses the platform to provide Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay, and others with unprecedented real-time transparency into product placement, stock status, and promotion execution. Simbe says stores that deploy Tally have cut online order fulfillment time in half while experiencing 60% fewer out-of-stock items and 90% fewer pricing mistakes. In the bargain, store employees get back up to 50 hours of time they had previously spent scanning barcodes by hand that they can now spend on face-to-face interactions with customers. In October, the company completed a $50 million raise, increasing its total funding to date to $105 million.

Read more about Simbe Robotics, honored as No. 28 on Fast Company’s list of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2025.

2. Apptronik

For bringing humanoid robots out of science fiction and onto assembly lines

In a robotics sector that has offered more stagecraft than substance, Apptronik stands out for building humanoid robots that can actually perform precise duties, drawing the interest of both investors and commercial partners. The company’s flagship Apollo robot, introduced in 2023, could initially use its arms to hoist and move objects as heavy as 55 pounds. In 2024, upgrades added finer motor controls for more precise operations—from picking up small objects to, the company says, making a smoothie. But 2024’s big upgrade at Apptronik was leveraging the AI accomplishments of third parties. In March, the company inked a deal with Nvidia to incorporate that firm’s Project Groot foundation model for robot learning, which will allow Apollo robots to learn new tasks by watching humans demonstrate them. And in December, Apptronik announced a comparable partnership with Google that will see the tech giant’s DeepMind robotics team collaborate on adding AI smarts to Apollo and other robots. Two other large companies provided further validation to Apptronik’s vision in 2024—a partnership with Mercedes-Benz, unveiled in March, to put its robots to work in pilot manufacturing projects, followed by one with GXO Logistics announced in June to start proof-of-concept testing of Apptronik robots for warehouse tasks. Apptronik has raised some $65 million in funding over multiple rounds, the latest a $37 million round in April, to bring its valuation to $250 million.

3. Flock Safety

For harnessing drones to help police thwart crimes

Having a flying robot chase a fleeing criminal suspect may seem like a science-fiction scene, but Flock Safety‘s first responder-drone subsidiary, Aerodome, is providing that capability to police departments. Once Flock’s hardware spots a crime in progress, Aerodome drones take flight from quick-launch docks, then humans follow to apprehend the suspect. Aerodome says police departments that have deployed its system have seen a 15% reduction in calls that require a response by patrol officers, a 71% drop in emergency response times, and an 89.4% increase in suspect location. Flock found the results impressive enough that it bought Aerodome for $300 million in October. (Flock recently raised $275 million at a $7.5 billion valuation.)

Up next: Flock and Aerodome are developing a lineup of U.S.-manufactured drones that will comply with the National Defense Authorization Act to significantly expand the crime-fighting surveillance capabilities of the system. The current system depends largely on ground-based cameras to identify suspects or reads license plates; the new system will increase aerial surveillance capabilities. Flock and its law-enforcement partners will no doubt continue to fuel debates (and possibly lawsuits) over the civil liberty implications of emerging surveillance technology in policing: The ACLU and other civil rights organizations are currently suing Flock Safety for violating Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

4. GrayMatter Robotics

For reducing robot downtime by anticipating malfunctions

GrayMatter Robotics makes surface-finishing robots that grind, sand, coat, spray, and polish parts using digital-twin software and self-monitoring technology to optimize their operation for greater efficiency and less downtime. In 2024, the company completed a $45 million B fundraising round and introduced GMR-Guardian, an AI-powered system that monitors a robot’s operation to watch for precursors of future malfunctions, take automated actions to reduce the potential for failure, or shut down the robot automatically if necessary before it can inflict collateral damage. GrayMatter says this ensures that its robots can stay working 95% to 99% of the time.

Customers report serious advances in efficiency with GrayMatter’s Scan&Grind, Scan&Sand, and GMR-Guardian systems, such as a two to four times increase in productivity and more than a 30% reduction in waste. Workers, meanwhile, benefit from having GrayMatter’s robots take on ergonomically difficult or outright painful tasks, while the company’s training offerings can help them upskill themselves into robot operators with a few days of education. The company says that over the last 12 months, it’s doubled its number of customers served.

5. CNH

For harvesting the efficiency gains of AI

CNH features some old names in agricultural equipment—the C is short for Case, NH for New Holland—that are putting robotics and AI to work down on the farm. CNH’s software processes data from radar, lidar, and cameras to provide precise, no-GPS-signal-needed guidance to its tractors, sprayers, combines, and other machines as they make their way across farm fields. CNH leverages this precision not only to have its tractors and other hardware drive more efficiently—this automated steering lets farmers get harvests done 25% faster and with 20% less fuel—but to deliver fertilizer, weed killer, and pesticides more efficiently. In 2024, the company expanded its smart-farming portfolio with One Smart Spray, a technology developed by BASF Digital Farming and Bosch that uses machine-learning insights to optimize weed killer spraying by targeting only weeds with just enough chemicals to accomplish that task. And it launched a new, free-to-use FieldOps platform that lets farmers manage their entire operation, including near-real-time access to data from CNH equipment, via a web interface or Android and iOS apps. The company isn’t immune to industrywide trends—slumping demand led to a subpar third quarter—but focusing on efficiency should pay off in the long term as the agricultural industry sees input costs rise and labor grows scarce.

6. Percepto

For creating a “drone-in-a-box” industrial site inspector

The airspace is getting crowded in the market for drone inspections of infrastructure, but Percepto stands out with its “drone-in-a-box” solution that allows rapid inspections of energy and industrial facilities. The drone can be configured two ways: one, optimized for detecting leaks of such gases as benzene, methane, and propane, the other equipped with visual and thermal cameras for optical surveillance. The base station, meanwhile, charges the drone once it returns. The company has also developed a software platform that applies machine learning techniques for automated analysis of the data obtained by its drones. In 2024, Percepto upgraded its system’s ability to operate at scale by shipping support for remote operation of multiple drones: A single operator can now control up to 30 Percepto drones from afar. The company also advanced beyond its earlier FAA waiver to secure a “type certificate” in September; that level of formal recognition of Percepto’s safety practices that should be a significant signal to aviation regulators in other countries. Percepto clients have reported such gains as a $15 million reduction in monthly inspection costs at a U.S. refinery and detecting a gas leak in minutes that might have gone unnoticed for months in conventional monitoring.

7. Performance Drone Works

For incorporating battlefront lessons into backpack-size military drones

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine opened many people’s eyes to the military potential of drones, and Performance Drone Works has been working to make that a reality with backpack-size drones for reconnaissance and combat missions. The company’s field-portable C100 drone incorporates lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, such as a jamming-resistant radio and AI-powered “visual GPS” that compares camera views with stored imagery of the route to keep the drone on course despite GPS interference. The C100 drone is 24 x 15 inches—a little taller and narrower than a large pizza box—and just over 21 pounds, so it can slide inside a soldier’s rucksack. It can be prepped to fly in 10 minutes, transport up to 10 pounds of payload, and fly for up to 74 minutes. In 2024, PDW won a $6.9 million contract from U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) for the codevelopment of a next-generation anti-jamming radio system. PDW also announced it’s launching a FPV (first-person view) consumable drone this year—a type of drone that is just used on a single mission. Both PDW’s raw order totals and the number of systems ordered have increased by more than 1,000% year over year, including new contracts from the U.S. Army and Special Operations Command. Something to watch for 2025: PDW has also developed a civilian version of the C100 for public-safety missions.

8. Fanuc

For building robots that can work—and paint—alongside humans

Fanuc has been around awhile—this Japanese firm built its 750,000th robot in December 2023 and has a market cap of more than $25 billion, making it the second-most-valuable robotics firm in the world—but continues to expand its robots’ repertoire. In recent years, it’s built out a growing portfolio of CRX collaborative robots designed to work alongside humans instead of isolated from them. In 2024, the company introduced the CRX-10iA/L Paint “cobot,” which combines a small footprint with a 4.7-foot reach that lets the bot get into spaces that a human painter would struggle to reach—plus what Fanuc touts as eight years of maintenance-free operation. Those same humans, meanwhile, can teach this painting robot routines using a simple tablet app interface. Customers report impressive time savings with Fanuc’s collaborative robots; one aerospace component manufacturer was able to cut the time needed to inspect a part with 50 measurements from 12 hours for a manual inspection to just 10 minutes. Fanuc itself, meanwhile, saw its net income for the first half of 2024 rise by 9.4%.

9. Saronic

For creating a new class of sea drones for the U.S. military

Saronic has gotten its sea legs quickly. Founded in 2022, this startup has now built a series of autonomous surface vessels—sea drones, in civilian language—of increasing size, range, and capability that have attracted Pentagon contracts. In April 2024, Saronic’s Spyglass and Cutlass sea drones, the first two models it introduced, participated in the Navy’s Integrated Battle Problem 24.1 exercise, with the company integrating such service-provided payloads as an Anduril-manufactured attack aerial drone on those vessels in hours. In October 2024, the company launched Corsair, a 24-foot autonomous vessel with a 1,150-mile range, a 1,000-pound payload, and a top speed exceeding 35 knots—faster than almost any other surface combatant in the Navy. Saronic aims to put these and future sea drones into service as a force multiplier for crewed Navy ships and touts its ability to construct them quickly as a needed counterpart to China’s accelerating pace of shipbuilding. The company has received both private- and public-sector recognition, including a fundraising round led by Andreessen Horowitz that put its valuation at $1 billion, as well as a series of government contracts that include one with the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.

10. Osaro

For making warehouse robots better at unloading pallets

Osaro develops machine-vision systems for warehouse robots. Its SightWorks software combined with its AutoModel platform allows its robots to perform real-time reads of new products and processes in warehouses and adapt accordingly, without downtime for reprogramming. In early 2024, the company added a Robotic Depalletization System that can efficiently unload pallets that contain a mix of boxes of various dimensions and weights—traditionally something requiring repetitive and exhausting human labor. Osaro says its system can yield up to 40% cost savings. After eyewear vendor Zenni Optical implemented Osaro’s stack starting in 2021, it saw fulfillment throughput rise by 50% while product misplacements dropped from 20 per 100,000 to 2.5 per 100,000. Credit for that goes to boosts in efficiency from Osaro’s system such as reducing the steps needed to scan a product barcode from five human tasks to two automated ones. The company has raised more than $79 million to date, most recently closing a $19.15 million round in December 2023.

Explore the full 2025 list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, 609 organizations that are reshaping industries and culture. We’ve selected the companies making the biggest impact across 58 categories, including advertising, applied AI, biotech, retail, sustainability, and more.

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