Agility Robotics vs Preferred Networks

Agility Robotics has a disclosed valuation of $2.1B, while Preferred Networks's valuation is not publicly available, making a direct size comparison difficult. Agility Robotics employs 300 people.

Agility Robotics has raised more in total funding at $641M, compared to Preferred Networks's $308M — a gap of $333M. Combined, the two companies have completed 5 known funding rounds.

Agility Robotics leads with an Awaira Score of 80/100, while Preferred Networks sits at 72/100. That 8-point gap reflects real differences in funding, scale, and traction — it's not a vanity metric.

Agility Robotics was founded by Damion Shelton in 2015. Preferred Networks was founded by Toru Nishikawa in 2014. Visit each company's profile on Awaira for a full founder biography.

Agility Robotics: Agility Robotics, founded in 2015 and headquartered in the USA, develops bipedal humanoid robots designed for industrial and commercial applications. The company's flagship product is Digit, a two-legged robot engineered to navigate human environments and perform tasks including sorting, moving, and handling objects in warehouses and logistics facilities. Digit stands approximately 5.3 feet tall and can operate autonomously or semi-autonomously in real-world settings. The robot uses machine learning and computer vision to perceive its environment and execute complex movements. Agility Robotics targets the logistics and warehouse automation sectors, addressing labor shortages and operational efficiency challenges. The company has achieved a $2.1 billion valuation following $641 million in total funding, positioning it among well-capitalized robotics firms. As of its Series C stage, Agility Robotics competes with companies like Boston Dynamics, Tesla's humanoid project, and other bipedal robotics developers. The company's competitive advantage centers on practical industrial deployment rather than research-oriented development. Growth trajectory reflects increasing enterprise interest in warehouse automation and humanoid robotics for material handling tasks. Partnership announcements and pilot deployments indicate expanding market validation, though large-scale commercialization remains in early phases. Agility Robotics focuses on commercially-viable bipedal robots for warehouse automation rather than general-purpose humanoids, differentiating it within the competitive robotics landscape. Preferred Networks: Preferred Networks develops deep learning technology applied to robotics, autonomous driving, and industrial applications, building neural network architectures for real-time edge inference in robot control, factory automation, and connected vehicle systems. The Tokyo company gained international recognition for early competition victories in autonomous navigation and robot manipulation challenges and developed its own deep learning framework, Chainer, which influenced the design of PyTorch before Chainer was eventually retired.\n\nThe company raised approximately $350 million including a landmark $105 million Series A from Toyota Motor Corporation and other strategic investors, making it one of the most valuable AI startups in Japan at the time of its fundraising. Preferred Networks collaborates with Toyota on autonomous driving AI, with NTT on communications AI, and with Fanuc on factory robot intelligence, creating a portfolio of deep technology industrial partnerships that provide both funding and deployment scale for its AI research.\n\nPreferred Networks operates in Japan industrial AI market where established relationships with major manufacturing and automotive companies provide a defensible position that international AI startups find difficult to penetrate through conventional sales approaches. The company research focus on edge AI inference for robotics aligns with Japan competitive strengths in manufacturing automation and precision robotics, markets where AI-enhanced robot intelligence is being adopted to address labour shortages and quality requirements that purely mechanical automation cannot satisfy.

Preferred Networks got there first, launching in 2014 — that's 1 year of extra runway. Agility Robotics didn't arrive until 2015. In AI, that kind of head start means more training data, deeper customer relationships, and a bigger talent moat.

Agility Robotics has about 300 employees; Preferred Networks has about 100-500. A bigger team usually means more revenue or heavier VC backing, but in AI, small teams can build at massive scale.

Yes — they're direct rivals. Both Agility Robotics and Preferred Networks compete in AI Robotics, targeting many of the same buyers. If you're evaluating one, you should be looking at the other.