Why We Invested in Robust.AI
Prime Movers Lab is proud to announce that we led a $20 million financing round in Robust.AI, a company building robots to work alongside people in manufacturing and warehouses.
Existing automation solutions mainly target high-volume fulfillment centers and exclude the majority of the warehouses in the world. Many warehouses today have no automation at all and rely on human labor for everything they do. Even in warehouses that have automated, traditional solutions like conveyor belts are the most common tool. Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) that companies like Amazon use have low market penetration. Robust.AI is developing a solution that is easy to deploy, intuitive to use, and delivers immediate ROI to a variety of customers.
Robust has assembled a team of robotics rockstars. They combine years of technical robotics talent with a commercial focus on delivering value to customers. CEO Anthony Jules was previously CTO at Formant, a robotic operations company, and has held leadership positions at Google X, Google Robotics, Redwood Robotics, and Sapient Corporation. CTO Rodney Brooks has founded six companies, including iRobot (maker of Roomba) and Rethink Robotics. He has built and sold robots to consumers (Roomba), DoD (Packbot), NASA (Mars micro-rover concept), and industry (Sawyer). The team also includes Senior VP of Engineering Kavitha Velusamy (Amazon Echo), VP of Design and Human-Robot Interaction Leila Takayama (UCSC, Google X), and Head of Product John Moretti (Dishcraft Robotics).
The team is assembling cutting-edge technologies and approaches to make a robotic hardware and software platform that sets the high water mark for the field. Breakthroughs in perception, human-robot interaction, and mapping & navigation enable Robust to target a broader set of use cases than existing robotics platforms. The team’s mapping & navigation technology enables near-immediate deployment, a vast leap forward in an industry plagued by integrations that are “in month 18 out of 3,” as Brooks put it.
Supply chain disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic brought logistics companies to the front of the world’s collective attention. Services like two-day and same-day delivery have raised expectations on retailers and fulfillment centers. Labor shortages spanning the economy have turned up the difficulty for companies striving to achieve faster service and higher volumes while juggling daily staff turnover. Robust.AI provides an automation solution that multiplies the productivity of each employee and reduces the burden of dull tasks. Material handling in manufacturing and fulfillment is a $75+ billion market, and we believe Robust can be one of the dominant players helping companies in the space solve the mission-critical challenges of today’s global marketplace.
This financing funds the company’s initial customer deployments across e-commerce fulfillment, contract manufacturing, and online wholesale. We are excited for the company to demonstrate its novel approach and help customers enter the age of automation. Existing investors JAZZ Venture Partners and Playground Global joined this round, along with new investors, Future Ventures and Energy Impact Partners’ Elevate Future Fund.
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.
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