Realtime Robotics last week announced that it has secured an additional $9.5 million in funding from Shinhan GIB and Kyobo Life Insurance. The Boston-based company develops collision-free autonomous motion planning solutions for industrial robots.
Realtime said it will use this additional investment to drive further product enhancements, incorporate feedback from customers and partners, and scale to support additional go-to-market efforts. The additional funding will also help pave the way for streamlining additional time-to-value for customers.
The company has raised a total of $71.3 million, according to Crunchbase.
Realtime Robotics makes a suite of software tools for programming robotic arms and the systems they are used in.
Helping customers save money
RapidPlan said it systems reduce the annual costs of robotic automation by two-thirds and makes the robot programming process up to five times faster, all while eliminating collisions and removing the majority of manual, time-consuming adjustments. This delivers a strong ROI across both existing applications and a very broad range of new ones.
“Manufacturers need to accelerate their adoption of robotics - and quickly realize a return on that investment - in order to improve their ability to adapt and compete in today’s industry,” said Peter Howard, CEO of Realtime Robotics. “RapidPlan perfectly complements these efforts, enabling the programming, deployment, and robot control to be optimized. Our intelligent tools dramatically reduce complexity and the potential for human error, both of which can rapidly increase the cost of deploying and operating industrial robots.
“We’re thrilled to apply this funding to our scaling and development efforts as we grow to meet the increased market demand,” he added.
Rapid Robotics provides much needed flexibility
To capture a larger share of the market, manufacturers are putting a renewed emphasis on optimization, flexibility, retooling, and connecting processes from simulation to production, Rapid Robotics argued. In fact, McKinsey & Company research recently found that software innovation has the potential to expand automotive industry revenue by $1.5 trillion in 2030.
The need for a highly-skilled workforce, however, goes hand-in-hand with these transformative efforts. Because programming and integration can account for up to 50-70% of the cost of a robot application, innovative approaches to automation and robotics are needed for there to be a real impact on the bottom line.
Recent company momentum
- Realtime Robotics was named an official supplier for BMW Group, who uses its technology to speed robot programming time, autonomously generating collision-free robot movements.
- Global automotive product and solution supplier The Schaeffler Group highlighted its use of RapidPlan to improve throughput and robot cell automation in a multi-robot bin-picking application.
- Siemens and Realtime released a plug-in for Siemens Process Simulate, further building upon the companies’ long-standing partnership. The plug-in enables customers to incorporate RapidPlan into their regular workflow for added efficiency, and is available in addition to the standalone RapidPlan software.
“It takes years of deep engagement with a real industrial manufacturer to understand all their requirements and build against them,” added George Konidaris, co-founder and CTO of Realtime Robotics. “That very long tail of highly-specific, detail-oriented requirements is the thing that actually makes robotics products both hard and valuable, and is what most robotics startups just miss, either because they're not familiar with real applications or because they are trying to build something very general first. We're far along that journey and are seeing our sustained efforts result in customer success. It's an exciting time.”
Realtime Robotics at Automatica 2023
Realtime Robotics was on-site at Automatica 2023 trade show in Munich, Germany. There was three opportunities for attendees to experience Realtime’s innovative motion control and collision avoidance technology on the show floor: an industrial assembly screw application in the TestZone (booth #A5.530); a textile demo cell in the booth of FANUC Deutschland GmbH (booth #B6.231); and a Schaeffler Special Machinery video highlighting the technology (booth #A5.311).
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