Symbotic has acquired autonomous forklift developer Fox Robotics in a move that broadens its logistics robotics offerings. Financial details about the acquisition were not disclosed. Symbotic announced the deal during its Q1 2026 earnings call.
Symbotic founder and CEO Rick Cohen said the Fox Robotics acquisition gives Symbotic access to a broader market in autonomous material handling and the possibility to introduce new solutions even beyond existing warehouse automation.
Fox Robotics was founded in 2017 in Austin, Texas. The number of customers it has is unclear. On its own website, Fox Robotics says it “currently has 100+ FoxBot autonomous forklifts installed at 54 customer sites across the U.S. and Canada.” During the Symbotic earnings call, however, Cohen said Fox Robotics has 25 customers and “mostly what they’re doing is pilots.”
Cohen said most of Fox Robotics’ customers are not Symbotic customers. But it appears the two companies share one large customer: Walmart. During the earnings call, Cohen said Fox Robotics is selling to Symbotic’s largest customer. That customer is Walmart.
“The interesting thing with Fox [Robotics] is our large customer has thousands of fork trucks. But there are lots of other customers. The CPG manufacturers, their facilities, where they actually don’t do as much manual selection, but they still move pallets from the warehouse to the trucks. They unload goods to their warehouses.
“So what I’m excited about is that we’re looking for more opportunities to interact with customers and acquisitions is a nice way to do it to introduce them as we talk to the supply chain people and we make these robots more successful, they build credibility and trust in Symbotic as a solution provider. Some of [Fox Robotics’] biggest customers are not Symbotic customers. Now. Hope they will be in the future,” Cohen said during the earnings call.
Walmart has long been Symbotic’s largest customer. Some estimates have Walmart accounting for nearly 90% of Symbotic’s revenue as of early 2026. Symbotic in 2025 acquired Walmart Advanced Systems & Robotics, which originally was Alert Innovation. Walmart acquired Alert Innovation in 2022 to develop in-store automation for e-grocery fulfillment, but Walmart sold this business to Symbotic in January 2025 to focus on broader applications.
Fox Robotics’ FoxBot autonomous forklift. | Credit: Fox Robotics
Walmart announced in 2024 that, after a 16-month pilot, it rolled out 19 autonomous forklifts across four high-tech distribution centers.
“Some M&A could be a way of acquiring customers and getting much more interaction with the customers,” Cohen said during the earnings call. “In the Fox acquisition, we can sell guided fork trucks to a lot more people than we can sell a Symbotic system to. I mean, we could sell two guided fork trucks to Joe’s, you know, pizza warehouse.
“But there’s people like DHL and other people that are very interested in space that they’re running tests on, a lot of the big CPG companies. So, we’re looking at those kind of acquisitions. So, we looked at Fox and said, this is a very, very large potential customer base. Smaller sales per transaction but beginning to show customers how they can think about reorienting their warehouse.”
Symbotic reported first quarter revenue of $630 million, up 29% year-over-year, and net income of $13 million, compared with a net loss of $17 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025. The company said adjusted EBITDA reached $67 million, up from $18 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025.
Cash and cash equivalents totaled $1.8 billion at the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, reflecting a $574 million increase from the prior quarter, which includes $424 million of net proceeds from a follow-on offering.
“We are off to a strong start this fiscal year,” said Cohen. “Our operational execution and product innovation are yielding tangible economic benefits for both our customers and us.”
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