WORLDTECHBrits in Japan raise $1.2M to put modular humanoid robots to work
Single source: this development was reported by Tech.eu. What WORLDTECH can establish is that the report was made, and by whom. It has not been matched against a second independent organisation and has not been officially confirmed by the organisations involved.
What happened
O-ID , a Tokyo-based company founded by two Brits building one of the world’s first fully modular humanoid robots for industrial manufacturing and logistics, has raised $1.2 million in pre-seed funding. Chicago-based TAWANI Ventures led the round, with participation from Hustle Fund, Techstars, and angel investors — including the founders of Humanoid Guide, who were early investors in robotics company 1X.
Building robots in Japan for the world O-iD was founded in Tokyo in 2025 by Norwegian CEO Stian Jakobsen and Dutch CTO Simon Gormuzov, who met at Waseda University. Jakobsen previously worked in cyber defence, while Gormuzov, a mechanical robotics engineer, spent years in industrial robotics before the pair decided to build O-ID together. Japan’s $65B physical AI push meets an 11 million-worker shortfall As its population ages, Japan’s workforce is projected to shrink, leading to a shortage of more than 11 million workers by 2040, with factory workers retiring and going unreplaced.
Sources & evidence
- Tech.eu Reporting source
Europeans in Japan raise $1.2M to put modular humanoid robots to work ↗
https://tech.eu/2026/09/24/brits-in-japan-raise-1m-to-put-modular-humanoid-robots-to-work/