New York Robotics, a nonprofit devoted to advancing the robotics group within the New York Tri-State area, this week formally launched with greater than 160 robotics startups in its ecosystem. Almost 100 of those are in New York Metropolis alone, it mentioned.
New York Robotics (NYR) mentioned it hopes to ascertain the town as a worldwide contender in robotics alongside hubs resembling Boston, Silicon Valley, Pittsburgh, Munich, Zurich, Singapore, and Odense, Denmark. It started as a Meetup group in 2021 and has been getting ready for this launch for 2 years, Jacob Hennessey-Rubin, the co-founder and govt director of NYR, instructed The Robotic Report. Since 2024, NYR has organized greater than 20 occasions.
When Hennessey-Rubin moved to New York in 2018 and labored at a robotics startup, he realized that there have been many different startups within the metropolis, together with an funding ecosystem, service suppliers, and a thriving educational group. What it lacked was a useful resource to tug these particular person items collectively, Hennessey-Rubin mentioned.
“We’ve carried out a whole lot of work in serving to to develop these connections, but additionally to foster the pure work that’s taking place inside New York [state] and New York Metropolis specifically,” he mentioned. “We sort of dropped the pebble in New York Metropolis, however we’re actually rising out throughout the ecosystem of the entire state.”
What makes New York a very good residence for robotics startups?
There are many the reason why New York Metropolis would make a super residence for a robotics startup, Hennessey-Rubin mentioned. “There’s such a various panorama right here, from folks, the buildings, the actual property, the surroundings, the constructed surroundings, and it’s an thrilling alternative to create,” he mentioned. “I believe an important instance can be the FDNY robotics group headquartered on Roosevelt Island. It’s a firefighting group that makes use of each land, sea, and air robotic techniques.”
NYR is pulling from the town’s lengthy historical past of innovation, Hennessey-Rubin added. “Tesla, Edison, Bell, all these innovators labored on this area,” he mentioned. “Lengthy Island was a cradle of aviation, and there’s all of the stuff taking place in semiconductors in Upstate New York and in Western New York. The historical past that’s right here is absolutely thrilling, and other people typically neglect about that.”
As well as, greater than 20 universities inside 100 miles of Manhattan have robotics or engineering-focused applications, he mentioned. New York is centrally situated between the robotics clusters in Boston and Pittsburgh, plus Washington, D.C., the place the Nationwide Robotics Caucus has restarted.
“Now we have a very excellent spot the place we change into a central node in tethering collectively all of those elements of the ecosystem to actually develop the robotics business at massive,” mentioned Hennessey-Rubin. “In order a lot as we concentrate on the 160-plus firms that we now have within the Tri-State space, our actual focus is on supporting them from an financial and workforce improvement perspective, in addition to connecting the dots throughout the nation and across the globe.”
How is NYR organized?
Robotics specialists, together with Jacob Hennessey-Rubin, a co-founder of New York Robotics (far proper), on the New York State Capitol in Albany in help of the NY State Accountable Robotics Act. | Supply: New York Robotics
One factor Hennessey-Rubin discovered early in his journey to ascertain New York Robotics is that there are numerous several types of robotic clusters with completely different constructions. MassRobotics, the Pittsburgh Robotics Community, Silicon Valley Robotics, and different regional organizations every present completely different sources for his or her communities.
NYR has targeted on a public-private mannequin, he mentioned. Final summer season, its group and an intern from Columbia College checked out greater than 100 robotic help organizations (RSOs) around the globe.
“We cataloged all these of us from incubators, accelerators, and enterprise studios that had been particular to robotics or had some sort of robotics focus,” Hennessey-Rubin recalled. “We narrowed that all the way down to a choose group and began to interview to raised perceive their enterprise fashions, what they had been doing proper and unsuitable, in addition to a number of the enterprise issues round how many individuals they had been graduating, what sort of capital they raised, and what number of IPOs that they had.”
“From that, we took an understanding that, so as to actually propel the business and ourselves ahead, we wanted to first go into that non-public funding mannequin. That permits us to broaden the scope of what we’re doing,” he mentioned. “Nothing towards the public-funded fashions, however they typically pigeonhole you into a selected KPI [key performance indicator] or a job that must be carried out. To get ourselves off the bottom, we targeted on non-public hyperlinks.”
NYR has 10 founding companions, in addition to annual and strategic companions. They embody J.P. Morgan, AlleyCorp, Informa Markets, Interwoven Ventures, Normal Bots, Monozukuri Ventures, Cybernetix Ventures, and Newlab, amongst others.
What are the important thing sectors for robotics in NYC?
Monumental Labs, a New York-based startup, makes use of robots for stone carving. | Supply: Monumental Labs
The number of companies in New York Metropolis gives robotics startups many sources for figuring out markets and growing merchandise, mentioned Hennessey-Rubin.
“An attention-grabbing factor about New York is that it offers that chance to develop [robots] right here, manufacture it right here, and check it right here,” he mentioned. “New York turns into a sort of Petri dish of all of the alternatives for all of the issues that occur within the robotics ecosystem.”
Whereas NYR isn’t limiting itself to any particular industries, it does have just a few strategic focuses. Hennessey-Rubin mentioned medical fields, together with lab automation, prescribed drugs, hospital logistics, and biotech discipline, is one space of curiosity.
Building is one other focus, in addition to manufacturing, warehousing, provide chain, and logistics. New York additionally presents distinctive alternatives for retail, meals, and hospitality robots, mentioned Hennessey-Rubin.
“One I’m most excited for is robotics in artwork and theater,” he added. “It comes by way of my background in design and manufacturing. We’ve seen robots each on stage and behind the digital camera.”
New York Robotics launches the NYR Index
Together with its launch, NYR launched a non-public beta model of the NYR Index, a proprietary ecosystem intelligence device to offer companions unique entry to information, insights, and mapping throughout startups, buyers, labs, and enterprise individuals.
“It’s all about relationships. Constructing this index was meant to get a whole lot of the knowledge in our heads into a spot the place folks might entry it,” Hennessey-Rubin mentioned. “Our service suppliers and ecosystem companions are actually keen on offering their companies for these startups on this actually superb, rising business. So it’s making a system that permits for that group to come back collectively and find out about one another in an internet digital platform.”
NYR additionally plans to launch a Discord channel within the coming weeks as a digital place for founders to attach along with in-person occasions. The group additionally expects to proceed rising the roles part of its web site.
“That Profession Heart is absolutely going to assist sort of deliver that traction,” Hennessey-Rubin mentioned. “In January, our publication had over 50 jobs in it from the Tri-State space [New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut]. It’s very thrilling to see that sort of development taking place when folks take a look at New York and don’t typically take into consideration robotics taking place right here.”
What comes subsequent for NYR?
New York Robotics collaborating in a panel at New York Tech Week. | Supply: New York Robotics
One in every of New York Robotics’ greatest priorities transferring ahead is to be an lively a part of the robotics group throughout the nation. It plans to ship representatives at upcoming commerce exhibits and business occasions. NYR might finally set up a bodily location to assist startups, however it’s at present extra targeted on occasions, mentioned Hennessey-Rubin.
“There’s positively curiosity in establishing that house, largely to offer these sources. On the similar time, our focus is on supporting the ecosystem broadly, and never essentially simply being a landlord or taking good care of a chunk of actual property,” he famous. “There are additionally loads of different companions that we will work with, resembling Newlab.”
“As a nonprofit, we’re all the time trying on the fundraising facet to develop the group and to have the ability to help the ecosystem we’re growing,” Hennessey-Rubin continued. “It’s actually about spreading the attention and determining methods to raised quantify and qualify the affect.”
Is NYR planning to work with native, state, and federal governments?
“We’ll be having these conversations with our lawmakers in order that they’re conscious that what we’re doing is absolutely necessary,” Hennessey-Rubin replied. “Nationally and globally, it’s protected to say that the embodied AI portion has been ignored of the coverage dialog, however it’s additionally a reasonably new course of. So you understand, we need to make it possible for we enable ourselves to place that flag within the floor.”
