REK, the San Francisco robot-fighting company: who runs it, where it fights, and what is not disclosed
Founded in 2025 by Cix Liv, REK now leases an arena on Van Ness Avenue and fights remotely piloted, Chinese-made humanoids. Funding, headcount and the outcome of California's cease and desist have not been published.
REK, short for Robot Entertainment Kombat, is the San Francisco company behind the most visible humanoid robot fights in the United States. It is small, young and, on the public record, thinly documented. This is what the sources say about who runs it, where it works and what remains undisclosed.
Who runs it. The San Francisco Standard, reporting on 11 October 2026, says REK was founded in 2025 by Cix Liv, whom it describes as a former VR entrepreneur. The name is sometimes garbled in transliteration; Cix Liv is the spelling the Standard uses. The only other staff member the Standard names is Nick Dobrikov, 24, the lead hardware engineer, who it says previously worked on BattleBots. No total headcount has been published.
Where it works. In August 2025 the newsletter Core Memory described REK as operating out of a no-frills warehouse space off Van Ness in San Francisco. By October 2026 the Standard reports that REK has leased a permanent arena on Van Ness Avenue, in a former mattress showroom. Liv told the paper he wants regular bouts there. The Standard counted roughly 100 people at the weapons night it covered, many of whom had paid $69.
What it builds and fights. According to the Standard the robots are Chinese-made humanoids modified for combat and operated remotely by people, not autonomously. Liv is quoted saying the company is still a way out from autonomous fighting. The article names two machines, Rektile and T-REK, and says the blades used in the weapons night were made of AR500 steel and ranged from about 10 to 20 inches. Its headline gives 200 pounds as the robots' weight, while the body text gives 180 and 190 pounds for the two named machines.
Its record. REK's own site lists fourteen fights across nine cities since September 2025, three of them private bookings at company offices (see our earlier article on that record). REK has since announced REK 2.1 for 20 November, without publishing a venue or format.
Money. The Standard says funding was not disclosed and names Hubert Thieblot, a general partner at Founders Inc., as an early investor. We found no confirmed figure for how much REK has raised, and one outlet's claim that it is self-funded rests on a single source, so we do not repeat it.
Regulators. The Standard reports that after the September human-versus-robot cage match, the California Athletic State Commission sent REK a cease and desist over unlicensed combat, and that the commission did not respond to its request for comment. We have not found a public statement of how that was resolved.
What is not public. REK has not published total funding, headcount, revenue, a forward fight calendar beyond the REK 2.1 date, or a result for each bout of its September fight. When it does, this profile will be updated.