The Robot You’re Looking For: Introducing Sprout

We started Fauna with a simple premise: robots belong around people. Today, humanoid robots are largely confined to factories, fulfillment centers, and research labs. But keeping robots hidden away misses the point.

The real promise of robotics is helping people where they actually lead their lives: homes, schools, offices, and all the spaces in between. The robots we grew up watching weren't industrial tools. C3PO, The Iron Giant, WALL-E - these were all helpers, sidekicks, and companions. They were curious, reliable, and full of heart. In the real world, robots have looked nothing like this. To date, robotics efforts have delivered heavy machinery - understandably housed behind safety cages designed to keep humans out. 

This is not the only way.

Grounding us in the physical world through tangible, meaningful interaction, robots can be present in a way software alone cannot. People need to be around people - and so do robots. The economics point in the same direction; over 80 percent of today's workforce is in services, not manufacturing. Labor shortages in healthcare, education, and eldercare are already here and getting worse. The need for robots in human spaces is urgent, and for the first time, the technology is within reach.

That's why we built Sprout.

A Robot You Want To Be Around

Sprout is a humanoid platform designed from first principles to operate around people. This isn't a factory machine shrunk down; it is a new category of robot built for the spaces where we live, work, and play.

To achieve this, we rethought the hardware and industrial design entirely. Sprout stands 3.5 feet tall, is lightweight, soft to the touch, and moves quietly. It has no pinch points or sharp edges. It features an expressive face that communicates intent and invites interaction.

It is designed to be physically safe and socially approachable. The first time people meet Sprout, they don't step back - they lean in to say hello.

Building the Future, Together

Collaboration and human-robot interactions are at the heart of everything we do at Fauna. That is why, today, Sprout is for a developer audience. Breakthrough applications for humanoid robots won't come from any single company; they'll come from developers, researchers, and tinkerers with ideas for what robots should do and the roles they should play. If you have a core breakthrough, you shouldn't have to build an entire robot around it. We want developers to get to know Sprout, and, through repeated interactions, for Sprout to grow. 

With Sprout, movement, perception, navigation, and expression all work out of the box. Researchers and engineers can stop worrying about keeping the robot upright and start building the applications that excite them. 

Sprout is a canvas - for manipulation, task planning, human-robot interaction, and voice interfaces. And because Sprout is modular, the work developers do builds on itself: someone will solve a manipulation problem and publish it - and the next team can focus on something harder. This is how, step by step, we prepare robots for the real world. 

A Foundation you can Trust

For this platform to succeed, it has to be trusted. That means Sprout needs to be accessible, affordable, and durable enough to survive real experimentation. Developers shouldn't have to worry about breaking expensive hardware while testing a new idea. They should be able to push the platform hard, learn from failures, and iterate quickly.

Earning trust also means building in the United States. Our team in New York includes veterans from CTRL-Labs, Meta, Google DeepMind, and Amazon. We keep engineering and manufacturing close because tight feedback loops produce better, safer products.

We believe robots will eventually move alongside us, as familiar as laptops or smartphones. But that future isn't guaranteed. It has to be earned through safety, trust, and a community of developers with the right tools.

Sprout is where it starts. Come build with us.