RobCo applies bodily AI and modular {hardware} to industrial automation. Supply: Lightspeed Enterprise Companions
The brand new yr is bringing contemporary funding throughout the robotics panorama. RobCo GmbH at present stated it has raised Collection C funding of $100 million to advance its bodily AI roadmap, develop enterprise deployments, and deepen its presence within the U.S. market.
“With $100 million of further funding, we’ll grow to be the dominant AI robotics firm for manufacturing within the U.S. and Europe,” said Roman Hölzl, founder and CEO of RobCo. “It will permit us to execute on our objective of automating the extraordinary, so people can do the extraordinary.”
Based in 2020, RobCo stated it develops robotic methods that deliver studying and autonomy into industrial operations. The Munich-based firm stated its Autonomous Manufacturing Platform combines modular {hardware} with a bodily AI software program stack that allows quick deployment, steady enchancment, and application-specific efficiency.
RobCo builds full-stack platform for autonomy
RobCo asserted that it “has been vertically built-in from Day 1, growing {hardware} and software program as a single full-stack platform.” The platform combines notion, movement planning, and self-learning strategies to allow more and more autonomous robotic operations inside actual manufacturing environments.
The corporate stated its robots can purchase task-specific abilities by way of demonstration and self-learning reasonably than guide programming. This permits for speedy deployment and iteration, in addition to simpler adaptation to complicated or variable processes. RobCo claimed that it acts as a “single pane of glass” for patrons.
As well as, RobCo stated it designed its system “to scale back friction between at present’s processes and end-to-end automation, permitting groups to focus much less on establishing and sustaining methods and extra on their core enterprise processes and worth drivers.”
RobCo has expanded into U.S. manufacturing. Supply: RobCo
Deployments scale for U.S. enterprises
RobCo delivers its expertise by way of a recurring robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) mannequin, which it stated helps firms automate guide duties whereas minimizing operational complexity and threat. The corporate helps a variety of workflows, together with machine tending, palletizing, shelling out, and welding.
Final yr, RobCo expanded into the U.S., and it now operates in San Francisco and Austin. The U.S. has grow to be each a strategic precedence and a serious progress market as producers speed up automation efforts in response to labor constraints, reshoring initiatives, and rising operational complexity, the corporate famous.
RobCo added that its robots are deployed throughout a spread of business environments, from giant international producers similar to BMW to firms together with DynaEnergetics, Fabricated Extrusion Firm, T-Techniques, and Rosenberger.
Lightspeed doubles down on industrial robotics
Lightspeed Enterprise Companions and Lingotto Innovation led RobCo’s Collection C spherical. Different members included Sequoia Capital, Greenfield Companions, Kindred Capital, Leitmotif, and The Friedkin Group.
“After main RobCo’s Collection B, we’re excited to double down and co-lead this $100 million spherical,” stated Alexander Schmitt, a accomplice at Lightspeed. “Our bar is exceptionally excessive, and RobCo has continued to boost the usual for what trendy robotics can seem like in real-world manufacturing.”
“RobCo has what it takes to construct a world champion: methods that already ship in industrial environments at present and a platform grounded in bodily AI that may scale throughout use instances and geographies,” he added.
RobCo stated its enterprise capital buyers have expertise constructing category-defining expertise firms, whereas its industrial buyers use deep connections in trade to again progress firms over the long run.
“Manufacturing is getting into a brand new part the place autonomy can be a decisive benefit,” stated Morgan Samet, managing accomplice and co-head of Lingotto Innovation, an funding administration firm now owned by Exor. “RobCo stands out as a result of it brings bodily AI into actual manufacturing environments, combining confirmed deployment at present with a transparent, step-by-step path towards greater autonomy — permitting studying methods to assist folks the place it issues most on the manufacturing facility flooring.”
