Why we invested in coboworx 🤖
And why it will rock the SME robotics boat ✨🚢
At Paua Ventures we have been passionate about automation/robotics for many years now: we see enormous potential in freeing humanity from repetitive labour (see: robotics will eat the world). In recent years, software robots have gained a lot of attention (👋🏻 UiPath), but bear in mind that most of the world’s workforce is still performing manual tasks, of which only a tiny fraction is automated (data ranges from 3–9% = nothing!). Hence, industrial robotics is at least equally exciting and we are proud to have led the pre-seed round in coboworx (=cutting edge robotics made in Germany) around two years ago. Recently, the company has raised additional EUR 4.5m in seed financing, co-lead by our friends at Picus Capital and Team Global, where also Paua participated substantially.
So, I thought that it is about time to share some insights about why coboworx will become a leading player in the robotics landscape of tomorrow 🚀🚨💪 …especially because their website doesn’t tell the full story (yet)!
Some context before we dive in…
Mass adoption of robotics will be the single biggest change in our lives since the industrial revolution. And this paradigm shift will happen in the coming decade. But there are a couple of elements that are slowing it down:
- Robotics solutions are still generally expensive,
- hard to set-up and teach (=experts only),
- are “custom-built” (=inefficient prototypes),
- distributed via system integrators (=bottleneck & long implementation cycles),
- and are currently not sufficiently integrated into the machine and operator workflow (=no easy connectivity and open interfaces).
This complexity/inefficiency is especially affecting SMEs, leading to negligible robotics adoption in the segment. SMEs cannot afford big industrial automation teams and robot programming experts, they aren’t the customer of choice for the big robotics system integrators and oftentimes they have more production variability (=need more affordable and versatile systems).
However, SMEs are the backbone of our economy (=two thirds of all value creation and employment) and their pressure to automate is rising by the day, fuelled fierce global competition and lack of skilled workers. Hence, making robotics adoptable for SMEs is one of the biggest growth opportunities in the robotics arena in the coming decade -> and COBOWORX IS DOING JUST THAT 🔥🥳🥂
What coboworx does and why it is exciting…
“coboworx builds and commercializes do-it-yourself and process-ready robotics solutions, tailored for SMEs”
There is a lot of information in this sentence, so let me break it down and explain:
First, “builds”: yes, coboworx is (also) a robotics hardware company. I know that it has become common wisdom among VCs that hardware is not sexy, but at Paua we don’t always agree. We believe that in order to solve many real-world problems, you need to have a hardware platform to build upon. What would Apple be without the iPhone? Similarly, coboworx has an impressive software stack / vision, too (but more on that later…)
Second, “process-ready robotics solutions”: today, almost every robotic cell is somewhat custom-built, integrating many different components (grippers, arms, cameras, sensors etc.) and including dozens of custom-made parts. Hence, most cells are unique “prototypes”, assembled by system integrators. Imagine every car would be custom-built to each customer’s wish list (range, top speed, payload etc.) and take months to be assembled and certified. I think everyone understands that this is not efficient. But this is exactly what has been happening in industrial automation since decades. Luckily, coboworx set out to change this paradigm. The team has more than 100 years of combined robotics experience with the top global robot manufacturers (e.g. Fanuc and Kuka), system integrators (e.g. Matheus) and robotics startups (e.g. Wandelbots, where we are proud investors too) of this world. All of this expertise has lead to the ability to boil down the market needs to a small set of very concrete robotics use cases. Around these, coboworx has built standardised solution packages that solve these problems in an optimized way (including all needed hardware and software). The first solution will be around “palletizing” = loading parts from/to a pallet for transport. It will be somewhat like IKEA: there won’t be a single additional screw you need to get the whole system up and running. AND a non-expert can do it! See a sneak peak below 👀
Third, “commercializes”: Today, due to the high complexity of robotics cells, robotic OEMs sell via specialized system integrators. System integrators then deal with the final customer. This doesn’t only add costs but also time. System integrators typically have full order books and it can easily take 20–30 weeks from first contact to having your prototype cell up and running. And for every change, you need the system integrator again. Due to the high simplicity and modularity of the coboworx solutions, the end customer can directly configure and purchase the final product online. Without any intermediaries. Hence, the lead time for an up and running cell will be cut down to 2–3 weeks (=10x faster while being 33–50% more affordable).
Fourth, “do-it-yourself”: Not only the purchase process can be done by the end-user but also the assembly, setup and programming are revolutionarily simple. How is this possible? By combining cutting edge software engineering with modern (consumerized) UX and a lot of FOCUS! The clear focus on a concrete use-case (=palletizing), enables 95% of pre-configuration and a highly optimized interface. So only the final 5% of calibration work needs to happen on the shop floor (=e.g. “teaching” the robot the position of the conveyor belt where the products arrive and the position of the pallet where they need to go…thats it!).
Fifth, “open platform”: There are dozens of exciting robotics software companies out there, giving robots “new skills” like path optimization or context awareness. But all of them are struggling to harness the full potential of their software, since the underlying hardware and its 30 year old controllers & interfaces are the bottleneck. It is like trying to run instagram on a NOKIA 3310 💀. That’s why coboworx has built a completely open tech-stack, so an entire ecosystem of software companies can build on top. Just like the app-store on top of the iPhone. Fundamental apps will be provided directly by coboworx, but the rest will come from third parties! Exciting, no? 😎🍾🏄🏻♂️
I hope you enjoyed the read and share my excitement!
Stay tuned to coboworx (and Paua Ventures): the palletizing solution will be released shortly✨🚨🚀
PS: if you are a potential customer, future team member or possible partner of coboworx and interested to learn more -> please feel free to drop me a line to “georg@pauaventures.com”
