What Is Menlo

Menlo Research is a robotics company focused on making robots easier to build, train, and deploy. We combine AI that takes on the hard engineering work with open hardware anyone can build on. You may know us from Asimov, the open humanoid you can build, train, and customize. We also made Jan, an open-source AI agent with 7 million downloads.

Our Mission

Put real-world robotics within reach of every engineering team.

Today, getting a robot to do one new task takes a team of hardware, firmware, controls, and AI specialists, plus months of trial and error. Most organizations can't afford that team, so most physical work never gets automated.

We're building AI that takes on that engineering work, so a small team, even just one person, can automate one physical task in a real-world environment. You describe the task, the AI proves it on a digital twin of the space in simulation, where failing is cheap, and only then does a robot get deployed.

Our Story

We build what we need, one part at a time.

We started with software. In January 2024 we launched Jan, an open-source AI agent that now has 7 million downloads.

Then we turned to robots, and bought a humanoid to work on. The first time we deployed a walking policy, the robot lost control and slammed its leg into the ground, shattering a small metal part in its ankle. The whole company stood still for two months while we waited for that one replacement part. As we talked to other labs, we realised we weren't alone, since many of them had watched their research grind to a halt every time a robot went in for repair. That's when it clicked for us: a robot you can't fix yourself will always hold you back.

So we built our own, starting with a set of legs, then a torso, then a whole body, and open-sourcing the designs along the way. Because our team couldn't all share one robot, we also built a simulator and the tools to run it from anywhere, and closed the sim2real gap, so policies trained in simulation work on the real robot. What came out the other side is Asimov, the robot we wish we'd had. We officially launched it in April 2026, less than a year after first concept, and now ship it worldwide.

Who We Are

We're a team from computing, engineering, and plenty else, working across Singapore, Vietnam, and the US. We built Jan in the open, and we build Asimov the same way: in public, with a community building alongside us.

Ishneet and Ariel walking Asimov along Marina Bay Sands

(And yes, we took the first humanoid ever onto the Singapore MRT, hailed it a cab, and walked it down to Marina Bay Sands!)

What We're Building

What Menlo is building and why.

On this page

Our MissionOur StoryWho We AreAs Featured In