Symbotic acquires Fox Robotics

AI-enabled robotics for the supply chain company Symbotic announced during its Q1 2026 earnings call that it has acquired autonomous forklift provider Fox Robotics.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Symbotic adds logistics robotics to portfolio

During the call, Symbotic founder and CEO Rick Cohen said that the Fox Robotics acquisition broadens its potential customer base. Fox Robotics has 25 customers, some of whom are not current Symbotic clients.

“We recently closed the acquisition of Fox Robotics, a leader in autonomous forklift solutions,” he said. “This acquisition further enhances our strategy of utilizing our software to orchestrate robots that move goods through the supply chain from the dock door at the warehouse to the individual customer order from the store.”

In January 2025, Symbotic announced it agreed to acquire the Advanced Systems and Robotics business from Walmart.

Walmart also said it had committed to purchasing and deploying systems for 400 Accelerated Pickup and Delivery centers (APDs) at stores over a multi-year period, with Walmart’s option to add additional APDs in the coming years.

Walmart paid Symbotic a total of $520 million, including $230 million at closing. According to the news, the transaction and new agreements could increase Symbotic’s future backlog by more than $5 billion.

“Mostly what they're doing is pilots,” Cohen said of Fox Robotics during the call. “They are selling to our large customer. Every time I go in a warehouse, I look at their robots and I look at how we could help them do better. But… the interesting thing with Fox 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. What I'm excited about is that we're looking for more opportunities to interact with customers and acquisitions is a nice way 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 their biggest customers are not Symbotic customers. Now, I hope they will be in the future.”

Symbotic’s largest customer is Walmart. Fox Robotics and Walmart agreed to a multi-year partnership in April 2024 to deploy 19 FoxBot autonomous forklifts across four high-tech distribution centers.

"Symbotic’s acquisition of Fox Robotics expands its automation footprint within the distribution center's four walls, enabling the company to manage inbound and outbound operations alongside its existing mixed-case palletizing and ASRS capabilities," said Rueben Scriven, research manager at market intelligence company Interact Analysis. "This acquisition also helps Symbotic broaden its portfolio for smaller customers who might otherwise lack the capital to invest in a full-scale mixed-case palletizing solution."