RobCo applies bodily AI and modular {hardware} to industrial automation. Supply: Lightspeed Enterprise Companions
The brand new 12 months is bringing contemporary funding throughout the robotics panorama. RobCo GmbH right this moment mentioned it has raised Collection C funding of $100 million to advance its bodily AI roadmap, broaden enterprise deployments, and deepen its presence within the U.S. market.
“With $100 million of extra funding, we’ll turn out to be the dominant AI robotics firm for manufacturing within the U.S. and Europe,” acknowledged Roman Hölzl, founder and CEO of RobCo. “This can permit us to execute on our function of automating the bizarre, so people can do the extraordinary.”
Based in 2020, RobCo mentioned it develops robotic methods that carry studying and autonomy into industrial operations. The Munich-based firm mentioned its Autonomous Manufacturing Platform combines modular {hardware} with a bodily AI software program stack that permits 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 mentioned its robots can purchase task-specific expertise by way of demonstration and self-learning somewhat than handbook programming. This permits for speedy deployment and iteration, in addition to simpler adaptation to advanced or variable processes. RobCo claimed that it acts as a “single pane of glass” for purchasers.
As well as, RobCo mentioned it designed its system “to scale back friction between right this moment’s processes and end-to-end automation, permitting groups to focus much less on organising 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 know-how by way of a recurring robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) mannequin, which it mentioned helps corporations automate handbook duties whereas minimizing operational complexity and danger. The corporate helps a variety of workflows, together with machine tending, palletizing, dishing out, and welding.
Final 12 months, RobCo expanded into the U.S., and it now operates in San Francisco and Austin. The U.S. has turn out 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 variety of business environments, from giant world producers resembling BMW to corporations 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 contributors 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,” mentioned Alexander Schmitt, a companion at Lightspeed. “Our bar is exceptionally excessive, and RobCo has continued to boost the usual for what fashionable robotics can seem like in real-world manufacturing.”
“RobCo has what it takes to construct a worldwide champion: methods that already ship in industrial environments right this moment and a platform grounded in bodily AI that may scale throughout use instances and geographies,” he added.
RobCo mentioned its enterprise capital buyers have expertise constructing category-defining know-how corporations, whereas its industrial buyers use deep connections in business to again progress corporations over the long run.
“Manufacturing is coming into a brand new section the place autonomy will probably be a decisive benefit,” mentioned Morgan Samet, managing companion 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 right this moment with a transparent, step-by-step path towards larger autonomy — permitting studying methods to help individuals the place it issues most on the manufacturing facility ground.”
