Themes in Robotics
Several patterns emerged in our conversations with founders
This is the second post about our robotics squad. Read the first: The Robots of CES 2023.
As part of the research for our Robotics Squad, we visited CES back in January to see robotics demos and talk with founders who we hadn’t had the chance to speak with yet. I wrote about some of our favorite companies we met there here. Today, I’ll discuss some of the themes that have emerged in our conversations with founders.
#1 Automation is here. Embrace the new tools
A common theme in popular writing about robotics is that robots are coming for our jobs. This is partially true. Robots are replacements in discrete tasks but are tools in general workflows. What do I mean by this? Bank tellers have been replaced by ATMs. If you need to get cash from a bank you no longer need a human. But there are still people employed by banks. The jobs they perform have changed and are oriented around higher-value services. We have spoken to founders developing robots aimed at elder care, manufacturing, fulfillment, inspection, and more. Almost universally, the robotics companies we spoke with are not expecting to replace humans. Most commonly, the need for human labor is reduced, a boon at a time when many industries face labor shortages.
There are some tasks that benefit from human dexterity or intelligence, and humans still do those things. The best designs we saw understood this relationship, and allow time-consuming or menial tasks to be offloaded without friction. The less successful approaches involved disrupting current workflows (e.g. a robot asking you to move out of its way rather than going around you) which felt irritating and uncomfortable.
#2 Human-Robot interaction is fundamental to success.
Since the purpose of automation is to make human labor more productive, most robots will need to operate around people. It’s not enough to develop great technology, companies must also be mindful of user experience. Fulfillment companies tout their robots in hiring materials. When executed correctly, automation can eliminate the three D’s — Dull, Dirty, and Dangerous work.
#3 Scalability hasn’t arrived — and moats are elusive
Some of the most impressive robots we saw have surprisingly few deployed in the field. There is an opportunity for startups to grab market share, refine designs, and gather usage data in the field. There are lots of ideas for how to scale but most are still just ideas.
Scale is important in and of itself when considering venture-backable companies. In robotics, there is a second layer that’s more important. Relying on hardware to create a defensible moat will be challenging or impossible. A startup can build a moat by capturing proprietary data from its robots in the field and creating novel insights. John Deere is a great example here. Deere’s See & Spray™ technology trained its machine learning algorithms on crop images gathered from the tractors the company had deployed on farms. Few, if any, companies have access to that training data set.
#4 Form factor
There is no consensus on what robots will look like. The most popular form factors we saw this year were arms, humanoids, and variations on carts. While we saw a few other ideas here and there, notably missing from the popular exhibitors were nature-inspired forms such as swarms and widespread usage of soft robotics. This may be more reflective of who chooses to come to CES rather than the current state of the art.
#5 Robotics is multidisciplinary
Robotics integrates many technologies, and few people, if any, are experts in all of them. Mobility, sensing, cognition, and manipulation are the four main abilities that need to be developed before we have “science fiction-level” humanoid robots. Many companies are focused on just one of these areas, which is an indication of how hard each problem is in and of itself.
#6 Common limitations
At CES we noticed several seemingly basic challenges that companies still need to address:
- Robots didn’t work because they didn’t have wifi
- Many need longer battery lives
- Human intervention for standard operations like battery recharging
- Initial deployment is hard — many robots need to be manually walked around their environment and need people to tag common destinations
#7 Business Model innovation
Arguably one of the most impactful breakthroughs in robotics is the introduction of the“Robots as a Service” or RaaS business model. This isn’t particularly novel but it is important and worth noting. High capital requirements for customers used to be a barrier to adoption and slowed the industry down. RaaS aims to align costs and economic benefits — companies pay for robots as they get value from them. This makes a purchasing decision much easier (and shifts capital requirements to the producer). In some cases, an employee like a warehouse manager may be able to bypass the purchasing department altogether to begin a small trial.
#8 Founder vision
The most impressive founders have big visions for what they will achieve in the future. They have a clear roadmap that describes how they can provide value immediately, learn from that, and then incrementally add functionality.
Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation, and agriculture.
Sign up here if you are not already subscribed to our blog.
