Covariant vs 1X Technologies

1X Technologies has a disclosed valuation of $10B, while Covariant's valuation is not publicly available, making a direct size comparison difficult. 1X Technologies employs 150 people.

1X Technologies has raised more in total funding at $237M, compared to Covariant's $222M — a gap of $15M. Combined, the two companies have completed 2 known funding rounds.

1X Technologies holds the higher Awaira Score at 82/100, compared to Covariant's 70/100. The Awaira Score is a composite metric factoring in valuation, funding, stage, team size, and market presence — a 12-point gap that reflects meaningful differences in scale or traction.

Covariant was founded by Pieter Abbeel in 2017. 1X Technologies was founded by Bernt Bornich in 2014. Visit each company's profile on Awaira for a full founder biography.

Covariant: Covariant builds an AI robotic picking and automation platform that enables warehouse and fulfillment robots to handle the enormous variety of product shapes, sizes, and packaging types encountered in real-world logistics operations. The platform is built on RFM-1, a foundation model for robotics trained on one of the largest robotics datasets ever assembled, enabling generalized manipulation capabilities across new product types without task-specific retraining.\n\nThe company raised approximately 222 million USD and has deployed its AI in warehouse environments at major retailers and logistics operators in North America and Europe, with robots handling millions of picks per day across diverse SKU catalogs. Covariant was founded by researchers from UC Berkeley with foundational backgrounds in deep reinforcement learning for robotic manipulation.\n\nIntelligent robotic picking remains one of the hardest unsolved problems in warehouse automation, as the combinatorial variety of product types encountered in e-commerce fulfillment exceeds what rule-based vision systems can handle reliably. Covariant approach of training a generalist manipulation model on large-scale real-world robotics data parallels the approach that made large language models broadly capable, and represents one of the most technically credible attempts to bring general robot AI to industrial deployment at scale. 1X Technologies: 1X Technologies is a Norwegian robotics company founded in 2014 that develops humanoid robots designed for physical automation tasks. The company has raised $237 million in total funding and maintains a $10.0 billion valuation, currently operating at Series B stage. 1X focuses on creating general-purpose humanoid robots equipped with advanced AI capabilities to perform dangerous, repetitive, or physically demanding work across industrial and service sectors. The company's primary product line centers on bipedal robots with dexterous manipulation capabilities, combining mechanical engineering with machine learning to enable autonomous task execution. The robots are designed to navigate real-world environments and adapt to varied operational scenarios. 1X Technologies positions itself in the emerging humanoid robotics segment alongside competitors like Tesla's Optimus and Boston Dynamics. The company emphasizes practical deployment over theoretical research, targeting near-term commercial applications in logistics, manufacturing, and facility management. Key technical differentiators include proprietary control systems and embodied AI approaches that enable robots to learn from experience. The robotics sector has attracted substantial venture capital investment, with 1X's valuation reflecting investor confidence in the humanoid robot market potential. The company's growth trajectory reflects increasing market interest in physical automation solutions, though commercial deployment at scale remains in early stages across the industry. 1X Technologies combines humanoid robot hardware with embodied AI to create commercially-focused autonomous workers for industrial applications.

1X Technologies was founded first in 2014, giving it 3 years of additional market experience. Covariant was founded later in 2017. In AI, even a year or two of head start can translate into significantly more training data, customer relationships, and institutional knowledge.

Covariant has approximately 100-500 employees, while 1X Technologies has approximately 150. A larger team often signals higher revenue or venture backing, but in AI, smaller teams are increasingly capable of building at scale.

Yes, Covariant and 1X Technologies are direct competitors — both operate in the AI Robotics space and likely target overlapping customer segments. This comparison is especially relevant for buyers evaluating both platforms.