Advance Venture Partners’ Post

Collaborative Robotics 𝐑𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐬 $𝟏𝟎𝟎 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠   Collaborative Robotics is an innovative company developing AI-enabled collaborative robots for industrial applications. At the heart of Collaborative Robotics' technology lies the integration of AI algorithms into their robots, enabling them to adapt and learn from their environment in real time. This advanced capability empowers the robots to perform a wide range of tasks with precision and efficiency, while also being responsive to changes in the production environment. Collaborative Robotics has raised $100 million in a Series B round led by General Catalyst. Existing investors Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, Mayo Clinic, Neo, 1984 Ventures, MVP Ventures, and Calibrate Ventures participated as well, along with Bison Ventures, Industry Ventures, and Lux Capital. In total, Collaborative Robotics has raised over $140 million to date.   Collaborative Robotics, Santa Clara, California, United States, was founded in 2022 by Brad Porter. “Getting our first robots in the field earlier this year, coupled with today’s investment, are major milestones as we bring cobots with human-level capability into the industries of today,” said founder and CEO Brad Porter. “We see a virtuous cycle where more robots in the field lead to improved AI and a more cost-effective supply chain. This funding will help us accelerate getting more robots into the real world.”

Three years ago, Stage Venture Partners backed Ariyan Kabir, Brual Shah , and Satyandra K. (SK) Gupta's startup, GrayMatter Robotics. Today, GrayMatter revealed their $45 million Series B, led by Wellington. In the past three years, GrayMatter's robots have handled 7.5 million square feet of products, streamlining tasks such as sanding, grinding, and finishing high-performance surfaces. This innovative automation addresses urgent labor shortages, enabling U.S. manufacturers to meet demand efficiently. Technology like GrayMatter's is crucial for American factories, and the company is just scratching the surface in revolutionizing high-tech production processes. https://lnkd.in/gJaUfDZq

Happy to report that GrayMatter Robotics has raised series B round led by Wellington Management. I co-founded GrayMatter Robotics in 2020 with two of my former PhD students Ariyan Kabir and Brual Shah to develop smart robotic cells to meet challenging requirements of high-mix manufacturing applications. We have come a long way since our early days. GrayMatter Robotics now employs more than 70 people. We have an amazing team at GrayMatter Robotics and it is truly a joy to be a part of the team! GrayMatter Robotics' smart robotics cells are currently installed in many factories in the US. Application areas include aerospace & defense, specialty vehicles, marine & boats, metal fabrication, sports equipment, and furniture & sanitary ware. Robotic cells in manufacturing application are often justified based on their potential to reduce manufacturing costs and deal with the labor shortage. I believe that our solutions have much broader societal benefits that go beyond cost reduction. We have shown the following four benefits realized by deploying our smart robotic cells: 1. Reduction in ergonomically challenging tasks in surface finishing applications by 90%. This is helpful in reducing injury risks for human workers in factories.  2. Reduction in consumable (e.g., sandpaper) use by 30 to 50% and elimination of rework. This directly translates into making manufacturing operations more sustainable and reducing manufacturing waste that goes to landfill. 3. Enabling companies to grow their businesses despite significant labor shortages. For example, ambulance and firetruck manufactures will be able to reduce their backlogs by deploying our technology.   4. Upskilling manufacturing workers by offering them training to operate robotics cells and creating new career pathways for them.  It is gratifying to see our ideas making an impact in the real-world applications and improving the quality of life for people in the manufacturing sector.  #robotics #manufacturing

$100M in new capital for one of our largest investments from MVP Fund I. From the beginning, we have said Cobot represented a hole-in-one for MVP’s investing philosophy. Here's why:   TEAM: Cobot’s CEO Brad Porter led all robot hardware initiatives across Amazon — accelerating the program to over half a million robots and accounting for nearly 40% of all industrial robots deployed globally in the last 5 years. Steph Tryphonas, Jane Mooney, and the rest of the team are elite across robotics, hardware, and autonomous software. TECH MOAT: Building a generalizable robotics platform to work alongside humans performing a variety of tasks. This is a very difficult problem with no current winner. Succeeding will bring a wide moat across both hardware and software. They went from founding to robot in paying customer hands in just 20 months 😱. MAJOR INDUSTRY: In just "Material Mover" jobs in the US alone, there are 6.4 million employees, costing $196 billion and a 1M employee labor shortage ($30B). This is getting worse. Adding the tangential markets, and there is an opportunity to build a $100B+ business. TRACTION: I can't share much here, but they have significant traction already. Keep an eye out over the coming months / years for announcements. INVESTORS: This was already an unbeatable investor syndicate with Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, and us. Add General Catalyst and Lux Capital to the mix, and the cap table is truly stacked. This is but one stop on the journey. Let's get after it.

Exciting news! Freespace Robotics closed a lead investment! We're thrilled to announce that US Steel (NYSE: X) invested into Freespace Robotics, marking a significant milestone for our portfolio company. This investment follows closely on the heels of our partnership with Fives Intralogistics Corp., launching today at #MODEX2024, and an initial investment by NFI Ventures, LLC, the venture arm of North America’s leading 3PL, NFI! The lead investment sets the Pittsburgh based Freespace Robotics valuation at $50 million dollars. Here's to an incredibly promising 2024 ahead! 🚀 https://lnkd.in/eNS988wZ #FreespaceRobotics #SeriesA #Investment #Partnership #MODEX2024" Robert J. Szczerba Michael Lutzky Karl Sanchack Allison Myers James Cook, CFA Greg Cronin John Sidell Eric Brown Jared Szychter #modex2024 #supplychain#warehouseautomation #logisticsinnovation#robotics #3plsolutions #storagesolutions

Serve Robotics is public on Nasdaq! With the recent surge in robotics, it's easy to forget the landscape in early 2021 when Serve was formed. It’s a story of grit. Postmates had just been acquired and the R&D division was spun out to form a new company. We were facing tight capital, global supply chain disruptions, severe chip shortages, and were in the middle of a trough of disillusionment with autonomous systems. AI had not yet caught the attention of the world. There were almost no playbooks, infrastructure, or government policies in place. Even business and consumer sentiment was murky. Creating a sustainable, autonomous delivery fleet sounded audacious but we rallied around a bold vision and created robots from the ground up that customers truly love. I'm incredibly happy for the team and grateful to Uber, NVIDIA, Postmates by Uber and our other investors for believing in our potential. Like on-demand delivery in 2016, autonomous robots sounded crazy just a few years ago and I had an absolute blast making it a reality. As Director of Product, I wore hats in PDE, research, sales, operations, policy, go-to-market strategies, strategic partnerships, integrations, and marketing. Loved all of it and learned a lot. If this resonates with any builders navigating similar challenges, I’d love to connect and hear your story. Maybe I can help 🚀 #robotics #AI #Nasdaq #productmanagement #startups

🗞️🗞️ Fox Robotics’ CEO and President, Marin Tchakarov, recently joined Max Cao, CEO of Jacobi Robotics, and Ben Bolte, CEO of K-Scale Labs at the Robotics Founder & Funder Summit to discuss the transformative role of AI in robotics. “As we unlock better, faster, smarter technologies and combine them, we can afford to solve much harder problems, disrupting every way we can,” said Marin Tchakarov. Thank you to Foothill Ventures for hosting a compelling conversation about the future of supply chain automation! 📖 Deep dive into the panel in this article by Yuna Liang: https://lnkd.in/gDVWNDQY

RIOS Intelligent Machines secures $13M funding, propelling the evolution of AI-powered manufacturing. Yamaha and IAG Capital Partners join forces, endorsing RIOS's commitment to technological advancement. RIOS Intelligent Machines #SeriesB #funding #SeriesA Yamaha Motor Corporation, USA IAG Capital Partners #manufacturing #AI #robotics #automation #Startup

Robotics companies raised $749 million in December 2023 through 41 investments, bringing the total robotics investments for the year to about $12.9 billion. The United States received the highest number of investment rounds (14) and the greatest investment amount ($512 million), followed by China with substantial funding of $170 million for 12 companies. Companies in Germany, Korea, and Switzerland also received significant investment rounds. #robotics #ecommercebusiness #ecommercelogistics #warehousesolutions #investments #roboticsinnovation Ryo Mori, Michael Brown, Alysha Maria Lobo, Scott Bandy