Robotics Roundup #8: August 2024
Defense, endoscopy, and warehousing
Welcome back to Robotics Roundup, a look back at the month’s most important VC investments for the robotics industry. Anduril’s huge Series F was the headliner in August, with notable deals in medical tech and logistics.
The Deals
Anduril raised $1.5B in Series F funding co-led by Founders Fund and Sands Capital, with participation from new investors Fidelity Management & Research Company, Counterpoint Global, and Baillie Gifford, and existing investors including Altimeter and Franklin Venture Partners. The Orange County, California company specializes in autonomous defense systems, and will use the funding to build a 5M+ square foot manufacturing facility dubbed “Arsenal-1.”
Neptune Medical announced a $97M Series D funding round led by Sonder Capital and Olympus Corporation of the Americas. The Bay Area company’s “Pathfinder” product uses robotics to help gastroenterologists with endoscopy procedures.
Wingtra closed a $25.5M Series B1 round from Brick & Mortar Ventures, DiamondStream Partners, Cadence Growth Capital, EquityPitcher Ventures, Helvetic Trust, RKKVC, Spectrum Moonshot Fund, Spring Mountain Capital, SymbiaVC, and others. The Zurich-based company produces autonomous vertical take-off and landing drones.
Swiss-Mile raised $22M in Seed funding led by Bezos Expeditions and HongShan, with participation from Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund and Armada Investment. The Zurich company produces wheeled-leg robots capable of navigating stairs, with security, construction, and logistics use cases.
Applied Carbon raised $21.5M in Series A funding led by TO VC. The Houston company (formerly known as Climate Robotics) has developed a robot that picks up agricultural crop residue after harvesting and converts it into biochar, a charcoal produced from plant matter that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Starpath Robotics raised $12M in Seed funding co-led by 8VC and Fusion Fund, with participation from Day One Ventures, Balerion Space, and Indicator Ventures. The company plans to use robots to autonomously harvest water from the moon’s ice and convert it into liquid oxygen, an important propellant for spacecraft.
Trace Machina raised a $4.7M Seed round led by Wellington Management with participation from Samsung Next, Sequoia Capital Scout Fund, Green Bay Ventures, and Verissimo Ventures. The San Francisco company builds simulation infrastructure to help builders test robotics designs.
PHINXT raised $2.6M in a funding round led by Sure Valley Ventures, with participation from Ada Ventures, Heartfelt and Atlas Ventures. The London company builds a warehouse robotics coordination platform designed to simplify the implementation of automated systems.
Delivers.ai raised an undisclosed amount of funding at a $36M valuation from Japan Post Capital, Turkey Development Fund, Impetus Capital, and Istanbul Technical University. The Warwick, UK-based company is autonomous delivery robots for use in cities.
Do you have questions, feedback, or a funding round to announce? Get in touch at stateofrobotics@fprimecapital.com