Robotics Roundup #10: October 2024
Logistics, AVs, and an IPO. Plus: a new State of Robotics report
Welcome back to Robotics Roundup, a look back on the robotics industry’s most important VC deals for the month. October was another busy month for robotics investors, with a big round for Waymo, lots of inventory management companies raising funding, and even an IPO. Also, scroll through to the end to find an update to our annual State of Robotics report.
But first: the deals.
The Deals
Waymo raised $5.6B in funding led by parent company Alphabet, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, and T. Rowe Price. The Silicon Valley AV company plans to expand its self-driving taxi service to Austin and Atlanta in 2025.
GROPYUS raised €100M in new funding led by Semapa Next and Practical Venture Capital. The Vienna and Berlin-based company uses robotics to build modular and sustainable multi-story residential buildings.
Nimble raised a $106M Series C round led by FedEx and co-led by Cedar Pine, an existing investor. The San Francisco company has developed a general-purpose warehouse robot capable of storage and retrieval, picking, packing, and sorting for e-commerce companies.
Path Robotics raised $100M in funding led by Matter Venture Partners and Drive Capital, alongside Yamaha Ventures, Taiwania Capital, MediaTek, Catapult Ventures, Gaingels, Addition, Tiger Global, and Basis Set. The Columbus, Ohio-based company is building autonomous robotic welding systems.
Dexory raised a $80M Series B round led by DTCP with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X, and Bootstrap Europe, among others. The London company’s stock-scanning robots offer customers like GXO, Maersk, and DB Schenker the ability to track inventory and warehousing environments in real time.
Carbon Robotics raised $70M in Series D funding led by BOND, with participation from NVentures, Anthos Capital, Fuse Venture Capital, Ignition Partners, Revolution, Sozo Ventures, and Voyager Capital. The Seattle company builds robotic weeders that autonomously identify and eliminate weeds.
Outrider raised $62M in a Series D round led by Koch Disruptive Tech and New Enterprise Associates, with participation from 8VC, ARK Invest, B37 Ventures, FM Capital, Interwoven Ventures, NVentures, and Prologis Ventures. The Golden, Colorado company is building self-driving yard trucks for logistics hubs.
Simbe Robotics raised a $50M Series C round led by Goldman Sachs, with participation from Eclipse, Valo Ventures, and other existing investors. The Bay Area company is building inventory scanning robots for retailers.
Horizon Surgical Services raised $30M in Series A funding from ExSight Ventures and an undisclosed corporate investor. The Malibu company is building microsurgery robots to help doctors perform eye surgery.
Pony.ai raised $27M in new funding from Global Asset Capital. The Silicon Valley-founded self-driving car company also filed for a US IPO this month. Pony.ai is splits its headquarters between the Bay Area, Beijing, and Guangzhou.
Third Wave Automation raised a $27M Series C led by Woven Capital, Toyota’s growth fund. The Bay Area company’s autonomous high-reach forklifts can operate manually, with remote assistance, under remote operation, or with complete autonomy.
Corvus Robotics announced $18M in Series A and Seed funding led by S2G Ventures and Spero Ventures. The Silicon Valley company helps warehouses and production plants deploy autonomous drones to manage inventory.
FarmDroid raised €10.5M in funding led by Convent Capital, with participation from EIFO and Navus Ventures. The Danish company is building solar-powered multi-use field robots for agriculture, capable of sowing, weeding, precision spraying, and more.
AirForestry raised a €10.3M Seed round led by Northzone, with participation from Sveaskog, Kiko VC, CapitalT, Walerud Ventures, SEB Greentech VC, and Cloudbreak VC. The Swedish company is developing autonomous forestry drones to thin forests from above.
Voliro raised $12M in Series A funding led by Cherry Ventures. Using the Swiss startup’s aerial drones, companies can perform industrial inspections at scale.
Agtonomy raised an additional $10M for the Series A it first announced last December, bringing the round total to $32.8M. Autotech Ventures led the round, along with new investors Rethink Food, Allison Transmission, and Black Forest Ventures. The Bay Area company is building retrofit kits to give tractors self-driving capabilities.
Picnic Works raised $5M in funding led by Cercano Management, with participation from Unlock Venture Partners, among others. The Seattle company is building robotic pizza chefs capable of helping a single employee make up to 100 12-inch customized pizzas per hour.
3Laws raised $4.1M in Seed funding led by TenOneTen, with participation from the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund. The Los Angeles company is building safety control software to help robotic systems operate safely and at maximum efficiency.
The Big Exits
WeRide listed raised $440.5 million in its IPO and private placement following its initial public offering via Nasdaq. The Chinese company builds autonomous taxis, vans, buses, and street sweepers.
State of Robotics Update
F-Prime Capital’s Sanjay Aggarwal and Betsy Mulé released an update to our annual State of Robotics report, covering the first half of 2024. In it, they found that the picture has changed drastically after years of declining robotics investment:
Note that humanoids have received so much funding this year, we’ve broken them into a category of their own.
Find the full report here, and read more of Sanjay and Betsy’s analysis here.
Do you have questions, feedback, or a funding round to announce? Get in touch at stateofrobotics@fprimecapital.com
Thanks a lot guys for this summary!
This was very insightful