Lead-Lag Live

Humanoid Robots Are Coming: Investing in the KOID Opportunity

• Michael A. Gayed, CFA

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In this episode of Lead-Lag Live, Michael Gayed sits down with Cole Wenner from KraneShares to break down the rise of humanoid robots and why the theme is moving from cool demos to real-world deployment. Cole explains embodied intelligence, the labor and aging-population pressures driving demand, and where humanoids are likely to show up first — warehouses, factories, hospitals, and eventually the home.

They walk through the three parts of the KOID approach: the “brain” (AI and semiconductors), the “body” (motors, sensors, actuators, materials), and the integrators building full robots. Cole also highlights why many of the most investable opportunities sit inside the global components supply chain, where costs are falling fast across LiDAR, motors, and compute.

The conversation also covers timelines, pilot programs, cost bottlenecks, and how US strength in AI and China’s manufacturing advantage could speed adoption.

In this episode:
• Why humanoids are becoming practical now
• First real-world use cases
• The KOID framework: brain, body, integrators
• Component companies driving early value
• What needs to improve for mass adoption

Lead-Lag Live brings you conversations with the people shaping global markets. Follow the show and comment with the first task you’d want a humanoid to handle.

#KOID #Robotics #HumanoidRobots #AI #Automation #KraneShares #Investing #TechTrends

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SPEAKER_00:

If you are an advisor, by the way, and you're in a physical office, please do me a favor and tell other advisors about this webinar. Uh, they gotta sign up or just watch over your shoulder. I think you'll find this conversation, this uh webinar interesting on a part of the marketplace, which unequivocally is going to be as hot as AI has a buzz term uh when it comes to uh big investment themes going forward. Uh so for those that are here for the C credits, I will email you afterwards. I'll get your information, submitted to CFP board. I'm almost fully caught up on all the prior webinars, so I'll get that out ASAP. Uh and with all that said, my name is Michael Gaia. This webinar is sponsored by Crane Shares. We're gonna be talking about uh humanoids and robots and all the things which when we were kids we used to read about that's now coming to life. So I'll be in the background introducing Mr. Cole winner to get into the discussion. Thanks, Cole. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01:

And uh yeah, exciting webinar we have today. I will share my screen. All right, let's get started. So, today's webinar, we will be discussing humanoid robotics and embodied intelligence, access to the next global megatrend through COID, our humanoid robotics ETF. So, for those of you not familiar with Crane Shares, we were founded in 2013 by Jonathan Crane. Uh John Crane lived in China in the early 2000s, um, and he saw the growth that was taking place in China um in new sectors. And he believed that the rest of the world should be able to access that growth. So we launched Crane Shares in 2013. Um, we now have our flagship fund K Web, which is a China internet ETF. Um, and that's really access to the AI opportunity in China. Uh since then, though, we've branched out into a lot of other areas, including emerging technologies, climate, et cetera. So here we have Crane Shares full product suite list uh listed in the US. Like we discussed, K Web, Internet, and e-commerce, China's AI opportunity. Uh, we also have multiple funds covering the carbon market, global and specific uh markets. Uh one of my favorites too is AGIX in the global equity category. Uh AGIX is our AI and technology funds, um, full exposure to the AI value chain, including public and private. AGIX actually holds uh direct exposure to anthropic and XAI. But today we will be discussing COID, our humanoid robotics ETF. COID offers global exposure to the humanoid robotics opportunity, uh, including companies based in the United States, China, Japan, Germany, South Korea, and a few others as well. Uh we've decided to make COID equal weight. Um, we'll discuss why later. Um, and we bucket the companies in KOID into three main categories. That is the brain, which are semiconductor and technology companies, the body, which includes actuation systems, mechanical systems, sensing, perception, uh, and critical materials. And last but not least, integrators. These are the companies that are actually manufacturing humanoids, building them, selling them. So we launched COID back in June of this year, uh, and we celebrated it being the first ETF to focus completely on the humanoid robotics and embodied intelligence opportunity. Uh, we celebrated the US listing by having an opening bell, bell ringing at the NASDAQ. Uh, we actually partnered with a company called Robostore, who is also based in the US, and they are the official partner of Unitree uh in North America. Unitree is one of the leading robotics companies today. Um, and we were able to bring their Unitry G1 Ultimate robot to the bell ringing at the NASDAQ. Uh more recently, we've launched KOID for UCITS investors in London. Um, we also had an opening bell ceremony at the London Stock Exchange. Again, we brought the Unitry G1 Ultimate Robot to this event. It was awesome to see. Um, it's really cool interacting with the humanoid if you um haven't before. So here we have some of the latest models uh coming out today. Like we discussed, the United G1 Ultimate. Um, I will say their top model, which is the one we had at our NASDAQ and London stock exchange events, uh, goes for around$60,000. And you can put custom hands on it, um, you can program it to do all these different types of actions. Um, it can speak. Uh this is really a blank slate robot. Um, and it's really uh used today for educational purposes. Uh Robostore said that most of their clients um are in the educational space universities. Um they are getting interest from you know other sectors as well. But a lot of uh universities are buying up these robots to test, program, and see the capabilities for themselves. Um we also have a few other latest models listed here. Uh OneX's Neo has been in the news a lot lately. Um, they just released about a 10-minute video of their uh humanoid robot performing tasks in a home, doing everything from the dishes to making your bed to uh doing your laundry, uh, taking out the trash, whatever it is, answering the door. Um, very impressive stuff. They actually started pre-orders for their humanoid and plan to start shipping about Q2 2026. So it's coming up fast. Um we also on here is Figure AI. They are a private company. You might have seen them in the news recently for raising uh a new fundraising round at 39 billion valuation. Um but the real goal for all of these companies is to produce a general purpose robot rather than a specific task robot. They want to produce a robot that can handle multiple unique tasks, um, whether it's in your home, a factory, warehouse, uh, or hospital. So why now? Um, we've seen companies like Boston Dynamics uh 20 years ago coming out with robot models, right? And a lot of the problems that Boston Dynamics encountered were more engineering related. Uh, making sure the movement system for the robot was as human-like as possible. You know, getting the elbow fine-tuned, whatever it was, you know, it was really engineering, uh, it was really an engineering bottleneck. But today, um, in recent years, we've seen a surge in uh advancements in AI. And that has allowed humanoid robots to also take a leap. It's the logical next step. Um and today we're going to be focusing on embodied intelligence, which is AI systems that are integrated into physical machines like humanoid robots. Uh why do we need humanoid robots? Uh, there's a couple major global issues that we're facing today that we believe humanoid robots can help with. Uh one big one is aging population metrics. And a great example of this is in Japan. Um, Japan has already reached this critical threshold where 28% of its population is above the age of 65. So very quickly, their population is aging. Uh on a global scale, we're seeing about 13.5% of the global population at least 60 years old as of 2020, so five years ago. And that's projected to continue to increase, right? So that will shrink the workforce. That leads into labor shortages. Uh so again, Japan, but uh we're seeing this all over. Uh there's a global shortage in uh labor shortage, and especially in manufacturing um and a couple other areas. And this is this is a problem that we're going to have to face. Where the global economy is growing at a very fast pace. And once you achieve a certain level of growth, you expect that moving forward, right? So how do we keep that going? Humanoid robots. Uh Morgan Stanley just came out with a great report recently, um, where you can see on the right chart here, they're projecting 5 trillion in annual revenue by 2050 for the global humanoid robotics market. They are also projecting that there will be at least 1 billion humanoid robots integrated into the global economy. That's 1 billion humanoid robots actively working side by side with humans in a lot of different sectors, areas. So, like we discussed before, where will we see these robots uh pop up? One of the main use cases will be factories and warehouses. Um, in factories, we're we're seeing robotic arms already pop up in uh factory lines. Um, they're starting to integrate uh humanoid pilots for other tasks. Uh, we're seeing Amazon and their warehouses uh start the pilot humanoids for, you know, whether it's moving heavy inventory or sorting inventory. Um they're starting to test out humanoids there. So they're gearing up for the humanoid push that is going to start as early as next year. Uh hospitals and homes uh for hospitals. This is really going to be focused on elder care, I believe. Um, I think medical service robots, the market's projected to grow by 21 billion by 2028. So that really speaks to the growth that we can see in the uh healthcare sector. Um there they can assist with patient care, physical therapy, um, monitoring and improving accessibility for people with disabilities, and finally, homes, which is probably what most people are excited for. Um, all the chores that you don't want to do, like we said before, cleaning laundry, washing the dishes, making your bed, taking out the trash. This is probably the most exciting use case for most people. Um, like I was saying before, the 1X uh was showing their Neo robot completing all these tasks and they started pre-orders. I'm personally most excited for this. I would love to have a humanoid in my home to perform these tasks and you know, save time for myself and allow me to focus on other things. So, where's the bottleneck? Um I'd like to say any company can produce a functioning humanoid robot today uh at a$1 million price point, right? They they can produce it, they can make it, it's possible. Uh, but no one's going to pay a million dollars per humanoid. It's just not it's just not the reality of it. Um, so the bottleneck, the barrier to getting to that mass production, that mass adoption point, uh, we at Crane Shares believe is within the component companies, the supply chain uh leading into the final humanoid product. You can see on the on the graphic here on the slide, um, there's a lot of different parts that go into the building of a humanoid. Everything from actuators to sensors to motors, um, semiconductors, you know, the outer shell. Um there's a lot of high costs here. And it's preventing the industry from at this moment developing an affordable uh humanoid model. However, we are making strides towards that point of affordability. Uh just a couple weeks ago, we spoke to the director of robotics at RoboSense, who is actually um a holding company in COID. They focus on LIDAR systems for the humanoid. So their technology allows the humanoid to basically see, uh, digest its environment, evaluate its environment, interact uh like a human would in its environment. And LIDAR systems are essential to allowing a humanoid to perform the tasks that we talked about in factories, warehouses, hospitals, and homes. Uh just a few years ago, their light lidar technology costs tens of thousands of dollars. Um today, you know, their basic models cost a few hundred dollars. So we'll need this to happen top to bottom in the whole supply chain of humanoids uh to reach that that breaking point, that turning point for mass production and mass adoption. So the full spectrum of the humanoid value chain, we've bucketed the humanoid opportunity into three main sections. Uh integrators, which we talked about were the actual companies who were who are manufacturing the robots, um, including companies like Tesla, XPeng, Ubitech, uh, the Brain, which are semiconductors and technology companies. I like to think of them as the intelligence of the humanoid. Um, it also accounts for about 23% of the total cost of the humanoid. Um, but this is what allows the humanoid system, the physical system, to become intelligent, to be considered embodied intelligence. And finally, the body, which is the largest portion of the humanoid value chain today, right now. Uh, this is made up of actuation actuation systems, which can be thought of as the muscles of the robot, uh, mechanical components that form the structural foundation of the robot, sensing and perception, which are the LIDAR systems we are talking about. They also account for about 15% of the total cost. And finally, the critical materials for the robot, the actual metals that are going into building the parts, the outer shell of the robot, um, allowing it to, you know, move like a human. So, where's the investment opportunity? So, in the top portion here, you can see a couple big names that you may be familiar with: Figure AI, um Tesla's Optimus Unitry, which we discussed today. Um, you know, separate from Tesla and maybe a couple others, most of these companies are private. So most of the public, most investors are shut off from this growth um directly because they are private. However, we believe a lot of this value, most of the value can be captured in the component companies, which are listed below. Verizon Robotics, um, and events, Jabil, uh, a couple others. The component companies are essential to the building of the robot. And we see a lot of value in these companies, and a lot of them are publicly traded, and a lot of them make up a large portion of the COID portfolio. So let's jump into COID itself, the methodology. So we start with a universe of over 3,000 companies, um, which are selected based on a market cap and value traded metric. Um, we then filter it down to about 1,800 or 800 companies, which we filter by industry. So any companies that are related to the humanoid robotics, embodied intelligence-related industries, it could be components companies, semiconductor companies, um, integrators like Tesla. Um, we then look at, we then create an evaluation score. Um, we we use information from corporate filings, uh, media coverage, public data regarding their direct participation in the humanoid and embodied intelligence technologies, or even as strategic supply chain partnerships with established humanoid robotics firms. After applying this exposure score, we evaluate the 800 companies and select the top 50 ranking companies. Uh we then have COID, the COID ETF, which is the first, again, the first uh humanoid and robotics uh and embodied intelligence focused ETF ever listed in the US, as well as the use its market. We have an equal-weighted portfolio that is rebounds quarterly. We have 50 names in the portfolio, um, and which we believe is a good exposure, a broad exposure to the humanoid robotics opportunity. Uh, so here you can see our three buckets integrators, brain, body, um, with all the holding companies in Koid. Uh there may be some familiar names here, uh, like you can see in the integrators, Tesla, XPang, Ubitech, Rainbow Robotics, um, some others in the brain portion, Texas Instruments, Nvidia is a big one. Um, you know, uh Verizon Robotics. But what we really focus on today is the body. Actuation and mechanical systems account for 55% of the total cost of a humanoid. Sensing and perception account for 15% of the total cost. So in the mechanical systems, we have companies like THK, um aptive, TE connectivity, um, RBC bearings. You're getting very differentiated exposure that you may not have in your current out tech allocation. Um actuation systems, uh S Tune, Lead Shine, NIDEC, sensing and perception, uh, Robosense, like we talked about earlier, the LIDAR company, um, who we spoke to, um, Teledyne, Sensata. And finally, Critical Materials, which has been in the news a lot lately. Um, you've probably seen headlines about MP Materials, um, who's had deals done with the government, also some other major tech players in the U.S. They're really the U.S.'s top uh rare earths company. A representative from MP Materials actually uh came out with this interesting stat, but they believe that a humanoid robot requires three times the amount of critical materials, rare earths, compared to an electric vehicle. And that's just insane if you really think about it. Electric vehicles are probably the most critical material intensive sector globally right now. Um, they require a large sum of rare earths. NP Materials is projecting that humanoid robots will need 3x the volume of critical materials compared to electric vehicles. Um also in the critical materials uh allocation, we have Linus Rare Earths, which is in Australia, and then also Northern Rare Earths. So, what do some of these companies do? So in actuation systems, we have San Juan. Uh San Wah specializes in bionic robot uh electromechanical actuators. Uh sounds like a mouthful, but you know, these this is an important component company um that supplies parts to companies like Tesla to build their optimus Optimus. Um we have companies like Novanta also in the actuation systems, who supplies optical magnetic encoders. Uh, this allows for real-time position feedback in humanoid joints, um, allowing the robot to move in a human-like manner. Uh, and that is extremely important in a world built for humans. You know, this is also brings me back to the point of why humanoids make sense. It's not by mistake that robots are taking the shape as of humanoids. It's easier to build something that can plug into our global economy today rather than changing the infrastructure of everything to fit um a new form of humanoid robot or a new form of robotics. So that's why humanoids just make sense, right? They can move like humans, operate like humans, um, eventually perceive and think close to humans. Um we also have mechanical systems, companies like LeaderDrive, who's a major uh global manufacturer of humanoid robot precision reducers, um sensing and perception, like we discussed earlier, Robosense, but also sensada. Uh they're producing tactile sensors for the fingertips of humanoid robots. Um my coworkers, a couple of my coworkers, uh Derek Young, who's a senior investment strategist at Crane Shares, he recently went on a factory tour in China. Um he visited three private humanoid robotics companies. Uh, one company was completely focused on the hands of a robot. You'd be surprised how much uh technology and research and development goes into just something as simple as the hand, something you'd think is simple, like the hand. Um so we have companies focused on even the fingertips in in the humanoid robot. Uh Teledyne, which supplies thermal imaging cameras, um, another central component of the humanoid, uh, critical materials. Um, like we talked about MP materials. Uh they supply the actual uh critical materials that can produce high-performance motors, the actual shell of the humanoid, um, Linus Rare Earths, the Australian Rare Earths Company. Um, they focus more on magnet materials, uh, semiconductors, and technology. Everyone's familiar with NVIDIA at this point. Um, you know, they're really providing the intelligence for the humanoid robot through their semiconductors. Umbotics, maybe a little lesser known. Uh, they design energy efficient AI chips, uh edge computing, targeting consumer-facing robots, probably the robots that will be in your home. And then the integrators, finally. Tesla, um, who's producing their Optimus, currently their Gen 3. Recently, they had a demonstration of their humanoid, uh, their Optimus serving coffees at a Tesla diner. We're seeing a lot more of these demos pop up, um, companies showing off and trying to grab the attention of consumers um for their latest humanoid models. Uh finally, XPang with their iron humanoid robot, 60 joints, 200 degrees of freedom, uh, 3,000 tops processing power. Um, it's a very impressive model. I've also seen a demonstration floating around recently. Um, their humanoid looks very human-like. Um excited to see where they go with that one. Um, we're definitely going to see more of these demos pop up. Uh, you know, a lot of major firms are projecting humanoids will start being integrated, go from demos to real-world integration as early as next year. So, where are the companies based and what sectors are they in? So, the COID portfolio right now is in large part focused in China and the United States, the two largest global economies in the world. Um, they are currently the leaders um in the space, which is reflected in the COID breakdown, the COID country allocation. Um we really see uh the US having um an advantage in the AI space, um, semiconductors, technology, um, computing power. Uh the US is really leading in this area. China, however, uh they've been a long-term expert in manufacturing. Their advanced manufacturing gives them a distinct advantage in that area. Um, producing humanoids is a complex, complex task, and China has excelled in it. Um, so here in the portfolio, we really see the convergence of uh AI and advanced AI from the US and advanced manufacturing from China. We also have exposure to Japan, Germany, and about 20% of the portfolio is also allocated to a few other companies, South Korea, uh Netherlands, etc. So, like we were talking about before, um, the sector breakdown. A lot of the value today is in the industrials, which is reflected in the portfolio. 39% of the portfolio is component companies, industrial companies. Um next up, the next highest is the information technology companies. That's the intelligence companies, the you know, uh Nvidia's of the portfolio. Um, also a healthy allocation to consumer discretionary and materials. Um, materials have been, you know, doing very well performance-wise this year. I think it may have to do with you know trade negotiations between the US and China, but also just rising demand for uh next generation industries like humanoid robots, AI, um, electric vehicles. I really like to think about this opportunity um in the same way that we think about the AI opportunity. For our AGIX funds, we also bucket the opportunity into three categories: um, hardware, which are the semiconductor companies, infrastructure, uh, you know, cloud computing uh infrastructure companies and applications. You know, for that, for AI, our thesis is that the value chain will migrate across hardware to then in infrastructure, and finally applications will start to pop up, you know, in niche applications and a wide range of sectors. Like that value chain migration, we believe we'll have something similar in the humanoid robotic space. Um, very early, like we are today, we'll see a lot of the growth in the industrials, the component companies. Eventually it will shift to more focus on the uh brain, the intelligence of the humanoid robot. And finally, we'll see the manufacturers, uh, the integrators, the actual companies building and selling these robots um really capture the end value down the line. Um and that is assuming that you know they are able to build a functional humanoid robot that um can fit in specific or general purpose environments, um, and at if at an affordable cost that companies, um, enterprises can can buy in large, large quantities, as well as consumers, uh models that consumers can afford to buy for their homes. Um a lot of these price points, you know, are targeted around the cost of a car, uh, a cheaper car. Uh a lot of these companies really want to get their humanoids under the$30,000 price point. Um, a couple a couple companies are already very close. Um, so I'm excited to see the progress we make there as the supply chain uh bottleneck gets solved. And a lot of these companies are able to lower their costs and build a and an affordable uh humanoid robot. So finally, um we'll wrap up here and get to the QA. If you have any questions, please, please put them in the QA button at the bottom of your screen. So we have COID, our crane shares Global Humanoid and Bodied Intelligence Index ETF, the first ever ETF uh focused completely on the humanoid robotics opportunity. It was listed in June on the Nasdaq Exchange. Um, also listed a little bit more recently for use its investors. Um, it trades on the Nasdaq. We charge um 69 basis points uh for access to this opportunity. Uh we have about 50 holdings. Equal weighted. This was as of September, so a little outdated, but it says 75 million, about 75 million in net assets. We're actually getting closer to about 90 million. Um, on the right-hand side here, you can see the top 10 holdings, which you know is really not as important in an equal weight portfolio, but um between uh rebalances on a quarterly basis, you'll see some companies migrate to the top of the portfolio uh due to outperformance. And the same thing uh on the up the other way around. Um I mean, this product has only be been launched for a few months now, and it's exhibited very impressive in performance from the beginning of June through the uh end of September. It returned about 28% since inception. You know, that number has come down slightly. Um, you know, we've been seeing markets kind of uh pull back a little bit. Um they were going up very fast. Um a lot of a lot of it on the back of our AI technology companies. Um were coming into earnings season, uh, maybe a little bit of regulatory uncertainty with the Fed. Um, but overall, I think a lot of investors understand that the humanoid robotics opportunity, the AI opportunity with our AGIX fund, which gives you public and private exposure to the AI opportunity, um, these are very long-term trends, mega trends. Uh, we don't believe it's going anywhere. Um, and it's going to be something that's that could be dominating, you know, the global economy for decades to come. So with that, um we can jump into the QA, Michael.

SPEAKER_00:

Good. A couple of questions here. Are you planning on investing in any private similar to AGIX?

SPEAKER_01:

So the methodology um is does allow for it. Um we're always exploring new opportunities to be able to get um, you know, get investors true exposure to the full opportunity. Um, so it's something that we may be exploring, but right now the the portfolio is really reflected to where the value is now for the humanoid robotic space very early on. Um, we see a lot of this value in the component companies, a lot of publicly traded companies.

SPEAKER_00:

And uh why an equal weight index? You know, why why choose that as a methodology?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so you know, we've seen some other strategies pop up that, you know, don't equal weight their portfolio. And you end up with a portfolio that, you know, is heavily leaning towards companies like Tesla and NVIDIA, uh, if it's based on market cap. Um, we don't think having, you know, 20% of the portfolio in those two companies is a true reflection of the humanoid robotics ecosystem at the moment. Um plus uh that's exposure that you probably have elsewhere. I think most investors probably have, you know, a good allocation to NVIDIA and Tesla. We really wanted to bring investors differentiated exposure to the global humanoid robotics opportunity. Um a lot of names included in the COID portfolio you may not own elsewhere, um, elsewhere in your portfolio, or you may have trouble accessing them as you know they're listed on global exchanges.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a good place to wrap up this webinar. Um, is there any way for people to have the PDF copy? This is gonna be uh edited as a podcast and available on the YouTube channel. But anyway, for those that want PDF copy of the presentation, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

If if anyone's interested in learning more about KOI, you can visit crane shares.com slash K-O-I D. Um that will bring you to the fund product page. On there, we have a presentation uh available, the one you saw today, as well as um fact sheet. We have articles and research reports published on the humanoid robotics ecosystem and why we believe KOI is a good vehicle to capture that opportunity. Um, also listed on the fund product page for updated, um, up-to-date numbers on top 50 holdings, performance metrics, etc. So, yeah, please visit craneshares.com slash K O I D for more information on KOID and any of the other funds mentioned today, like our AGIX funds. Um, but thank you for everyone for joining. I really appreciate it. Thank you, everybody. Cheers. Thanks, Mike.

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Michael A. Gayed, CFA

Host