Gideon Brothers, a robotics and AI solutions company, today announced it has raised a $31 million Series A investment to accelerate the development and commercialization of its AI and 3D vision-based autonomous mobile robots (AMRs).
The company will also expand its manufacturing, sales, marketing, and customer success operations across key markets of the European Union and United States by opening offices in Munich, Germany and Boston, Massachusetts, respectively.
The Series A round was led by Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), the venture and growth arm of Koch Industries, with participation from DB Schenker, Prologis Ventures, and Rite-Hite.
The round also includes participation from several of Gideon Brothers’ existing shareholders, who are among the first backers of the Company: Taavet Hinrikus (co-founder of TransferWise), Pentland Ventures, Peaksjah, HCVC (Hardware Club), Ivan Topčić, Nenad Bakić, and Luca Ascani.
The company will expand its Board of Directors with two seasoned industry leaders: Annant Patel, Director, KDT, and Xavier Garijo, Member of the Board of Management for Contract Logistics, DB Schenker.
Gideon Brothers specializes in the flexible automation of horizontal and vertical material handling processes for logistics, warehousing, manufacturing, and retail businesses.
With its advanced mobile robots and complete software solutions for autonomous indoor and outdoor operations, the company helps businesses solve their most complex supply chain challenges: rising customer expectations, increased product variability and logistics volumes, growing variety of distribution channels, and ultimately, labor shortage.
Matija Kopić, CEO of Gideon Brothers, says: “The pandemic has greatly accelerated the adoption of smart automation, and we are ready to meet the unprecedented market demand. The best way to do it is by marrying our proprietary solutions with the largest, most demanding customers out there.
“Our strategic partners have real challenges that our robots are already solving, and, with us, they’re seizing the incredible opportunity right now to effect robotic-powered change to some of the world’s most innovative organisations.”
Matija Kopić, says: “Partnering with these forward-thinking industry leaders will help us expand our global footprint, but we will always stay true to our Croatian roots. That is our superpower.
“The Croatian start-up scene is growing exponentially – already boasting two unicorns – and we want to unlock further opportunities for our country to become a robotics & AI powerhouse.”
AMRs make processes and workflows more efficient and productive. This is typically achieved by performing non-value added tasks—such as transporting, picking up, and dropping off products – in order to free up colleagues to perform other tasks that add value to the operation.
With Gideon Brothers’ advanced technology, a true collaboration between robots and people is now finally possible – unlocking the hidden potential of the world’s material handling operations.
Annant Patel, director at Koch Disruptive Technologies, says: “With more than 300 Koch operations and production units globally, KDT recognizes the unique capabilities of and potential for Gideon Brothers’ technology to substantially transform how businesses can approach warehouse and manufacturing processes through cutting edge AI and 3D AMR technology.
“Gideon’s vision to enhance current industrial warehouse and manufacturing operations through close collaboration between humans and their robotic assistants, while automating complex manual processes to make work safer and more efficient, presents a shift in an industry ready for disruption.”
Xavier Garijo, member of the board for contract logistics at DB Schenker, says: “This investment in the development of autonomous mobile robots once again proves DB Schenker’s ambition to be the front runner in innovation.
“Our partnership with Gideon Brothers secures our access to best in class robotics and intelligent material handling solutions to serve our customers in the most efficient way.
“Our collaboration to date with Gideon Brothers has demonstrated real use cases in inbound and outbound processes within the warehouse environment, we also see wider applications and are excited at what this technology affords us in creating the ‘Warehouse of the Future’ for our customers.
“Together with Gideon Brothers we aim to challenge what we already have in practice at DB Schenker and revolutionize logistics business models.”
According to a recent research conducted by ABI Research the global mobile robotics market is expected to grow to $158.6 billion by 2030. There will be over 15 million autonomous mobile robots in the world by then, and some type of Visual Perception will power 90 percent of those machines.
