Flexible material handling automation systems provider Vecna Robotics recently announced the close of its Series C round at $100 million, with $40 million in new funding including equity and debt, which nearly doubles the company valuation from the previous round. Tiger Global Management, Proficio Capital Partners, and IMPULSE participated in the investment round. Vecna said the cash infusion will be used to fund new workflow-specific innovations that can enable it to deliver rapid ROI to cost-conscious warehouse operators served by the $165 billion pallet-moving autonomy market. “Finalizing this capital raise, with the help of our existing investors and a new…
Global modular warehouse storage automation company AutoStore recently relocated its United States headquarters to an expanded facility in Salem, N.H. The company said its U.S. headquarters relocation will bring over 100 jobs to the greater Boston region and will support the company’s continued growth and investment in the North American automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) market. At over 40,000 square feet, AutoStore said its new facility will better serve and support end customers with a growing service team, revamped training programs, and comprehensive onsite technology demonstrations. AutoStore Academy to offer hands-on and virtual training The Salem headquarters will house…
Airports are home to a variety of industries and businesses. Airside operations function alongside cargo and baggage ground handling logistics. Customer-facing terminals house security checkpoints and retail outlets. Runways, taxiways, ramps, and large grass fields make up most of the land area, while restaurants and stores inside terminals are compressed into expensive real estate. “When I think of an airport, it's like a small city,” said Cole Wolfson, director of the xBridge innovation center at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT). “There's just about every industry that you can think of that operates here. And so there's boundless opportunities to find new…
“When Locus Robotics started, getting 10 robots to work together on the floor - work well together - was a big, big challenge. Now, we have customers running nearly 1,000 robots over a million square feet.” Neil Bentley, senior director of product management at Locus Robotics, succinctly described the history of the Wilmington, Mass. company. Locus recently surpassed the 3 billion pick mark across its deployments, a major milestone and one that grew from 2 billion to 3 billion item picks in just over eight months. The chicken or the egg? As Locus received funding and developed its offerings, the…
Founded in 2019, California-based Robust.AI knew the bar was set high for its initial software and hardware rollout. Three years later, when its Grace software suite and Carter collaborative autonomous mobile robot (AMR) debuted, Robust set out to differentiate itself from the marketplace. Who knew it would all come back to the bar? “Designed with humans in mind” Kavitha Velusamy is the senior vice president of engineering at Robust.AI. She joined the company in 2021 and has played a major role in the development of Grace and Carter. One of the first things that users will notice about Carter, and…
Maxim AI, which is developing an enterprise-grade evaluation and observability platform for AI application development, recently announced a $3 million funding round led by Elevation Capital. The round also saw participation from marquee angel investors including founders of Postman, Chargebee, Groww, Razorpay, Media.net, among others. With the infusion of capital, Maxim announced the General Availability (GA) launch of their platform, marking a significant milestone in their journey. LLM, generative AI development slowed by current practices Maxim said with the recent explosion of large language models (LLMs), the race to build and deploy AI applications has intensified. Traditionally, software has built…
Autonomous mobile robot (AMR) provider Pudu Robotics recently announced the launch of its first robot designed expressly for industrial applications - the PUDU T300, which debuted at Hannover Messe 2024. PUDU said its T300 features maneuverability with an ability to navigate efficiently through narrow passageways commonly found in industrial facilities. The PUDU T300 also includes “map-and-go” functionality that allows for immediate use without network connectivity. The company said manufacturers worldwide are struggling to adapt to changing market demands and production variability. As a result, creating more agile, responsive and flexible production lines has become crucial. The PUDU T300 is specifically…
Robot market platform HowToRobot and independent advisors Gain & Co recently announced a merger to form a global automation market platform and vendor-independent advisory company that can support businesses with every aspect of their automation journey. United under HowToRobot’s name, the company also announced an investment from Sagitta Ventures, which will be taking a seat on the board. Together, the investment and merger will help fuel HowToRobot’s global growth, said the company. With the merger, Søren Peters, former CEO of HowToRobot, and Søren Pap-Tolstrup, former CEO of Gain & Co, will serve as co-CEOs. “Businesses need automation and robotics like…
