Robotics & Automation News

Market trends and business perspectives

funding

Starship robots make 100,000 deliveries as startup raises $40 million in funding

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Starship Technologies, which makes an autonomous delivery robot, has closed $40 million in Series A funding.

The company, which has just become the first to complete 100,000 commercial deliveries, also announced that it plans to expand its service to 100 university campuses in the next 24 months.

Delivery robots arrived today at the University of Pittsburgh. Purdue University, Indiana is launching on September 9 with more following shortly. [Read more…] about Starship robots make 100,000 deliveries as startup raises $40 million in funding

Attabotics raises $25 million to ‘transform supply chains’

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Attabotics, a robotics company specialising in supply chain technology, has raised $25 million in Series B funding from financial and strategic investors.

Participants in the round included Coatue, Comcast Ventures, and Honeywell alongside returning early investors Forerunner Ventures and Werklund Growth Fund.

The new funding will go toward supporting Attabotics’ continued, explosive growth, including new hires, scaling manufacturing operations, the development of new technologies, and more. Attabotics has raised $32.7 million in funding to date. [Read more…] about Attabotics raises $25 million to ‘transform supply chains’

Freedom Robotics receives $6.6 million in seed funding

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Freedom Robotics, which provides cloud and on-device software for monitoring, control and management of robots and robotic fleets, has closed a $6.6m seed round.

The funding was led by Initialized Capital, with Toyota AI Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, Andrew Miklas from S28 Capital, and James Lindenbaum, alongside existing investors Green Cow Ventur­e Capital, Justin Kan, Josh Buckley, Kevin Mahaffey, and Arianna Simpson.

Freedom Robotics creates tools and infrastructure that all robotics companies require but are not core to their product or value creation.

[Read more…] about Freedom Robotics receives $6.6 million in seed funding

Xometry raises $50 million for on-demand parts marketplace

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Xometry, the largest on-demand manufacturing marketplace, has raised $50m in equity funding, led by Greenspring Associates.

The new funding will back efforts to build a platform connecting suppliers to businesses that need prototypes and small runs of parts.

Dell Technologies Capital will also participate in the round, along with all previous venture and strategic investors including BMW i Ventures, Foundry Group, GE Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, Maryland Venture Fund and Almaz Capital. Xometry has raised a total of $113m to date.

[Read more…] about Xometry raises $50 million for on-demand parts marketplace

Mitsubishi Electric takes a stake in Realtime Robotics

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Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has taken an equity stake in Realtime Robotics, Inc. a U.S. technology startup that develops and commercialises motion-planning technologies.

Motion planning is the process of calculating and determining the optimised path that a robot should take to reach a goal without colliding with any obstacle. Realtime Robotics’ motion path planning solution performs the necessary calculations in real time.

Funding by Mitsubishi Electric is expected to accelerate the development of industrial robot systems offering enhanced safety and performance.

[Read more…] about Mitsubishi Electric takes a stake in Realtime Robotics

Robotic toymaker Anki to close down

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Anki, a startup company which made robotic toy cars and trucks, is planning to close its doors, according to a report on the Recode website.

The company had raised more than $200 million in funding for the venture, and generated $100 million in revenue in 2017, but is now making all of its 200 employees redundant.

In a statement to Recode, the company says that it had been left “without significant funding” which meant it could not finance its hardware and software development plans going forward.

[Read more…] about Robotic toymaker Anki to close down

Veo Robotics could make all industrial robots collaborative

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Traditional industrial robots tend to be very large and potentially dangerous, which is why they tend to be caged off and kept separate from human workers.

But a new company called Veo Robotics says it has the technology to transform traditional industrial robotic arms into safe machines that humans can work alongside, within close proximity.

Veo’s solution could make every industrial robot a collaborative robot. The term “collaborative” is recognized by international standards organizations and usually applies to much smaller, newer types of robots which are specifically designed to safe for humans to work with.  [Read more…] about Veo Robotics could make all industrial robots collaborative

Tomahawk Robotics raises $2.4 million in seed funding

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Startup company Tomahawk Robotics, which aims to bring “advanced robotic control systems to enterprise markets”, has raised a $2.4 million seed round investment from leading venture capital firms and angel investors.

Participating in the oversubscribed round are: Mosley Venture Partners, which led the round, Naples Technology Ventures, Scout Ventures and Stout Street Capital.

This initial investment round will be used to further evolve Tomahawk Robotics’ Kinesis platform and expand the product development and engineering teams to address immediate deliverables for key customers.  [Read more…] about Tomahawk Robotics raises $2.4 million in seed funding

Industrial IoT startup MachineMetrics raises $11.3 million in funding

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Industrial IoT startup MachineMetrics has raised $11.3 million in Series A funding. The company says the funding will enable it to “continue leading the endeavor to bring analytics to manufacturing”.

In a circular, the company says: “We intend to use every penny to give our customers a world-class experience through faster growth, focused innovation, quick product updates, custom features, improved service – and that’s just the start.”

Most importantly, adds the company, the funding has provided it with the opportunity to “preserve the secret sauce that has made MachineMetrics who we are today”.  [Read more…] about Industrial IoT startup MachineMetrics raises $11.3 million in funding

Plus One Robotics raises $8.3 million in Series A funding round

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Plus One Robotics, a 3D vision and controls developer for robotic automation in the logistics and e-commerce markets, has raised $8.3 million in its Series A investment round.

The funding round was led by Pritzker Group Venture Capital, with participation from Zebra Technologies. Also participating in the round were Schematic Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, TCL Ventures, ff Venture Capital, Dynamo, and First Star Ventures.

Erik Nieves, Plus One Robotics CEO, says: “We are delighted to add two more firms with deep roots in logistics and supply chain to our leadership.”  [Read more…] about Plus One Robotics raises $8.3 million in Series A funding round