Oregon's Agility Robotics begins Nasdaq trading after a $2.5 billion SPAC

Agility Robotics of Salem, Ore., began trading on the Nasdaq on Thursday after a merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI that valued the company at $2.5 billion before new investment and brought in about $465 million in gross proceeds, GeekWire reported. The stock closed at $11.51, up 2.2 percent, on a day the Nasdaq fell 5.5 percent. Agility is the first publicly traded U.S. company devoted solely to humanoid robots. Its Digit robots move totes and containers in warehouses and factories.

Digit 5, unveiled in September, stands 5-foot-11, weighs 284 pounds and was designed to work alongside people without a safety barrier. Earlier versions had to be fenced off. Co-founder and chief robot officer Jonathan Hurst told GeekWire that Amazon, an early investor, tested prior Digits and said it could not deploy a balancing robot at scale until the safety case was solved. Agility has been co-authoring ISO safety standards for the category. One unnamed customer has committed to a $300 million, three-year contract for 1,000 Digit 5 robots, subject to milestones, according to filings GeekWire cited.

CEO Peggy Johnson, a former Microsoft executive, said going public gives Agility more resources to put Digit into more workplaces. Revenue was $1.78 million last year. The company has offices in Oregon, Pittsburgh and Fremont, Calif., and a Salem factory built to eventually produce as many as 10,000 robots a year.