Hey Guys,

Yet another decent robotics startup got funding recently. This is their story.

The “Robots for everyone era” is coming faster than you may think.

What if modular robots evolved to become more important than we saw coming to help solve our productivity crisis, labor shortage problems and automation ideals? The push again globalization also means a race to find and develop the most useful robots at scale. This is something that China is winning in recent times, however this startup out of Germany looks interesting.

After years of outsourcing and offshoring manufacturing to countries with cheaper labor and bigger production ecosystems, the U.S. and Europe are on a mission to bring some of that industrial work back to its own shores.

Partnering with Robco: Accessible Automation for the Physical World

The round — a Series A — is led by Sequoia, with Kindred Capital, Promus Ventures and Torsten Reil, Christian Reber and Daniel Dines all also investing, is small and around $13.8 million. But the mission is big.

This is after all the story of 21st century automation in progress and it will re-shape the future of humanity in just a few decades. Robco, a Munich-based startup that builds modular robots to automate processes in small to medium-sized industrial businesses.

So how could industrial SMBs benefit from this trend? Robco’s modular robot kit offers an easy to use and software-based automation solution for the industrial manufacturing.

When Robco’s pitch deck arrived in our inboxes, we knew we were looking at what could be a truly transformative idea. At Sequoia we had long been thinking about robotics as part of our thesis on the current economy, with massive global labor shortages, supply chain challenges and rising costs combining into a perfect storm that automation has great potential to calm. - Sequoia

I also see the radical transformative aspect of modular robotics.

That they landed Sequoia is impressive enough but they also attracted Kindred Capital, Promus Ventures, Torsten Reil, Christian Reber and Daniel Dines. According to Sequoia, Robco stands apart from other robotics platforms because of its flexibility. With Robco, users can change their robots’ capabilities to adapt to their changing manufacturing needs. 

Advent of Robotics-as-a-Service

Roman Hölzl, the CEO of Robco who co-founded the company with Paul Maroldt and Constantin Dresel, said the plan will be to invest the funds both in expanding the capabilities of the existing modules and to continue adding on more clients to its modular-based “robotics as a service” model.

THE CLASSIC PITCH FOR AUTOMATION AT SCALE

Sequoia goes on:

Read more

Hey Guys,

While chatGPT gets the glory of the supposedly good news about A.I’s utility, I’m actually in 2022 more impressed with the advent of the robots. I’ve been waiting for years for this kind of progress and mass adoption.

A.I. Survey is about A.I. startups, robotics and other A.I. News, as I can only write so frequently on A.I. Supremacy, my flagship Newsletter.

It’s not all great news for Robot adoption however, like a dystopian movie, the city of San Francisco had recently passed a proposal, which was passed last week by the city's legislators, the board of supervisors, would have allowed police to access robots that can kill. Subsequently it faced fierce criticism from civil liberties groups as you might have guessed.

It’s hard to even imagine such a thing happening. After voting unanimously to pause the proposal on Tuesday, the board sent the issue to committee for further review. Meanwhile you might have heard, Boston Dynamics filed a lawsuit against Ghost Robotics that are making robot-dog killer machines for National security clients.

The Amazon Worker Robot Apocalypse

With a crisis of warehouse workers, Amazon appears to be fast-tracking robots to work at its huge E-commerce warehouses. Apparently the churn rate of workers is very high, and the climate of the conditions and pay is very low.

Read more

Hey Guys,

Robotics is maturing well so far in the 2020s. It’s an often overlooked sector and reality of technology unending pace of progress. It could also have ramifications on the workforce as the labor force participation rate is declining and we’ll soon face a productivity crisis with aging populations.

Are robots part of the answer?

While Amazon’s quit rate in its warehouses gets higher, its robots appear to be getting better!

“If we continue business as usual, Amazon will deplete the available labor supply in the US network by 2024,” the research, first reported by Recode, stated.

So what’s new? It’s the debt of “Sparrow”.

• The bin-moving robots designed by Kiva Systems still form the foundation of Amazon’s warehouse robotics play a decade after it acquired the startup.

• Over the years, the retail giant has broadened the scope of its warehouse ‘bots — hundreds of thousands of them now occupy fulfillment centers across the U.S.

• There’s evidence working with robots stresses robot warehouse workers out even more!

I’m not sure Amazon itself would put it quite that way:

FT was quick to note that it could also replace employees: Sparrow can pick up and sort millions of individual unpackaged products in tasks previously done by employees.

Read more

Hey Guys,

This is Artificial Intelligence Survey Premium,

The Alphabet X lab has a bright spot and its called Everyday Robots. This blog by Google changed how I see Google as a robotics R&D leader. I just wrote a longer article for A.I. Supremacy about how Code as Polices.

Google Research calls its new development "Code as Policies" and asserts that code-writing LLMs can be re-purposed to write robot policy code in response to natural language commands. 

This means in the future robots will be easier to communicate with and give commands to while they write their own code in Python to enable the action.

Alphabet’s Everyday Robots project, which aims to develop robots capable of performing day-to-day tasks such as tidying chairs is surprisingly innovative. X is Google’s Moonshot factory - that is - The X research lab explores emerging technologies that fall outside the main focus area of parent Alphabet. Before the Everyday Robots project, the lab ran the autonomous driving initiative that would eventually become Waymo LLC. X has also developed a variety of other technologies.

Just as Tesla thinks general purpose robots are important according to Elon Musk’s masterplan for the company, Google’s R&D in the domain is super interesting.

Read more

Hey Everyone,

Increasingly I’m enjoying covering and writing about Robotics. Like Quantum computing, it’s really early days, and still a time for dreamers. I think Elon Musk appeals to the Asimov readers in us all, and it’s all fair and good, with more than a grain of salt.

Let’s just say 2022 is still a time for dreaming about robots.

Tesla’s A.I. Days reminds me of Jack Ma. Tesla is not a leader in robotics, but aspires to be.

If you care about Tesla’s goal for robots listen to the event here:

You really do want to cheer for Elon Musk’s weird ambitions. He’s quirky and fun and a really bad liar at this point. Tesla’s prototype for a humanoid robot that people would want to buy “on sale” for $20,000 in 2027, is a bit ridiculous for Musk’s legacy. But given a decade of R&D and $Billions in cash, you never know.

I’ll check back in 2032, but really. It’s hard to cover this with a straight face:

• Tesla has unveiled its Optimus humanoid robot at its AI Day 2022 today and Elon Musk believes Tesla can bring it to market for “less than $20,000”.

• The company showed early prototypes of a humanoid robot and said it’s developing special batteries and actuators for them.

• Musk said he thinks it will be possible for customers to get an Optimus humanoid robot from Tesla in 3 to 5 years.

Given Musk’s usual timelines for things like FSD, this means more like the 8 to 12 year range. So Tesla’s robots at scale may occur sometime in the 2030s.

Some robots just need a little push from human men.

But it’s a brave new world and we need pioneers like Musk, to sell the dream, no matter how ridiculous. No matter how much Elon Musk mumbles and stumbles over the lack of real progress made in this his new pet project, among several others.

The origin story of Tesla Bot

During the last AI Day in August 2021, Musk said Tesla was building a humanoid robot, known as the Tesla Bot or Optimus.

And I’m not joking. The company didn’t have so much as a prototype to show at that time, and instead presented an dancer, dressed in a Tesla Bot spandex unitard on stage.

There were two prototypes unveiled at the event. One could not walk. It’s okay.

The one that could “walk” was apparently doing a stunt new to it. They said the robot was walking around for the first time without any mechanical supports on stage in Palo Alto. I don’t get it.

Musk said, ″We’re going to talk about the advancements in AI for Full Self-Driving, as well as how they apply more generally to real world AI problems like a humanoid robot and even going beyond that. I think there’s some potential that what we’re doing here at Tesla could make a meaningful contribution to AGI [artificial general intelligence].”

Why don’t you subscribe to read all posts.

Subscribe now

Read more

Hey Everyone,

As you may know, I’m deeply interested in following robotics and A.I. startups.

Prefer to listen? 9 min 32 seconds.

1MRobotics’ platform — a small warehouse of robots that pack orders — can be installed nearly anywhere and doesn’t need to be maintenanced regularly, ideally abstracting away some of the logistics of deliveries.

I like retail tech, I like it a lot.

“The pandemic has completely propelled ecommerce sales, purchase habits and consumer behavior to the next level — this new norm demands a new type of infrastructure to support rapid delivery operations at a global scale.”

Advent of Robotic Nano-Fulfillment Centers

This is fundamentally then a retail-tech story. Yet again I find myself talking about a Tel Aviv startup, basically the third I am covering just today.

It is a startup developing next-generation robotic dark stores, or as they classify them - robotic nano-fulfillment centers, announced today that Ibex Investors led their A-round funding along with its existing backers Emerge VC, Target Global, and INT3, with participation from other prominent investors. The Series A funding brings its total raised to $25 million, including a previous seed round of $8.5 million.

Think about it, leveraging AI, the system learns supply and demand patterns appearing in the order flow of the goods stored in the warehouse, Yair says, and “optimizes” the stock in response.

I’m not sure what a dark store is, but you get the idea.

This then is a pretty useful case of the use of robotics.

1MRobotics Website

Very dismayed that they don’t have a demo on their YouTube yet, talk about stealth! There’s a catch, according to TC there’s actually a lot of competition in this concept. The model isn’t dissimilar to Fabric’s, which has raised more than $300 million at an over-$1 billion valuation for its micro-fulfillment robotics technology. Other rivals include Attabotics, Nimble Robotics and better-established players like AutoStore (which went public last October), U.K.-based grocery fulfillment tech firm Ocado Group and Noyes Technologies.

The Micro-Fulfillment Space is pretty Hot

• 1M Robotics

• Fabric’s

• Attabotics

• Nimble Robotics

Tesla’s A.I. day about its robots is also coming up at the end of this month, so the future of robotics is going to be fun to behold.

So all of these are startups I’d really want to cover. I can barely keep up with the ones YC and TC throw at me.

I’m a big believer in dark stores and robotic delivery eventually taking over, and sooner than you think!

On-demand delivery is a super challenging space and the retail space is pretty volatile, especially heading into a critical 2023 year. I’m such a sucker for the “launching out of stealth” part, and this is no different. The company is launching out of stealth while also announcing exciting collaborations with leading Fortune 500 CPG brands and Q-commerce players. The financing will be leveraged for expansion into new global markets and enterprise clients, as well as the growth of the team.

1MRobotics, which is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, was founded in 2021 by Eyal Yair, Co-Founder & CEO, and Roee Tuval, Co-Founder & COO.

The team looks pretty small and pretty young. What is the dark store eh? On-demand delivery startups like Getir and Gopuff operate hundreds of dark stores within the cities they service — one analysis projects that there will be 45,000 dark stores in operation by 2030. Clearly this is a favorable and highly competitive niche.

I feel a certain sense of excitement and anxiety when I think of dark stores, dark kitchens and Cloud Kitchens.

With a long-covid crisis the food industry is really suffering and more automation is obviously part of the answer. Robotics is just in its infancy, but the potential here is obviously going to change the labor force over time. From robo-taxis to E-commerce warehouses to grocery delivery and last-mile delivery things will vastly change in the 2020s and 2030s.

Who else got in on the funding? The 1MRobotics funding was led by Ibex Investors with participation from Emerge VC, Target Global and INT3, as well as collaborations with brands including Nespresso, AB InBev and REEF Technolog.

I go into some more detail continued.

Subscribe now

If you are on an iOS device:

Read Artificial Intelligence Survey 🤖🏦🧭 in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

The Android App is coming soon.

Read more

Hey Everyone,

This is a short mention on breaking news. I like to report on everything A.I. and robotics. Considering Amazon’s recent and controversial acquisition of iRobot, I found this interesting.

I personally consider Amazon inferior to JD.com in terms of warehouse automation. Amazon is acquiring Cloostermans, a company out of Belgium that is a spe…

Read more

Gif credit: Boston Dynamics

SATURDAY AUGUST 13TH, 2022 3:15 PM MONTREAL, CANADA

Hey Guys,

I’ve always said the push of automotive companies to be leaders in the next era of robotics is real. Now there’s suddenly more proof. On June 21st, 2021 Hyundai completed the deal for majority ownership in Boston Dynamics, a robotics company that has been passed around like candy.

Its YouTube has 3 million followers. (Video)

The South Korean automotive giant now owns a controlling interest in Boston Dynamics, previously belonging to SoftBank. Before that of course Boston Dynamics was owned by Google. Considering all the R&D Google does on robotics in Google Brain, the sale in retrospect is somewhat puzzling.

Companies like Tesla, Xpeng and Hyundai as I have reported, have serious interests in the future of robotics and of course, the robo-taxi industry which is going to have such an absurdly high TAM.

So why does all this matter?

Hyundai Motor said on Friday it will spend $424 million to build an artificial intelligence (AI) research centre in the US to bolster its edge in robotics technology, an area it cites as a key future growth driver.

In case you are a super-fan of my A.I. coverage I have a Summer discount for this publication which gets you access to additional content.

Get 27% off for 1 year

You can also:

Get 7 day free trial

So let’s get into it:

Read more

AUGUST 5TH, 2022 10:50 AM MONTREAL, CANADA.

I have a special summer discount to reward my early backers, take it while it’s still here. A time limited offer.

Get 27% off for 1 year

Hey Guys,

Amazon is a hardware and robotics company too, let’s not forget.

Amazon is acquiring iRobot for $61 a share, an all-cash deal that values the Roomba maker at $1.7 billion, the companies an…

Read more

Like an article on Futurism.com, I think Robots will make incredible progress in the next 20 years (2023-2043). While we dwell on A.I. hype, Metaverse, Web3 or such non-sense, I’m far more interested in some ways in how robotics and quantum computing scale, those more down to earth parts of the tech hype cycle.

So what’s going on?

Researchers a…

Read more

Hey Guys,

There some evidence warehouse workers and those in some professions working alongside robots may have some negative health consequences. I found this article by the Hill in the Reddit of Futurology.

Read the Paper

Let’s discuss some of the implications of the study.

From the Article:

For the study, researchers analyzed data on workplace injuries in the U.S., …

Read more

The Robots are coming, well kinda.

Hey Guys,

Today I’m starting a new column on A.I. Survey called simply Robotics. Today it’s free but usually it will be behind a premium sub.

This column will talk about Robotics and industry robotics including E-commerce robots, deepfakes, drones and facial recognition based ambient computing. Robots, IoT, consumer robotics, etc...

Subscribe now

Amazon created so many jobs during the pandemic, to meet incredible demand. However Amazon has not kept up with JD.com or Alibaba in warehouses automation and robotics according to my own research. That hasn’t stopped them from investing in its future.

Automation in delivery (logistics) and warehouse operations is going to become a big deal. Amazon Robotics is headquartered in the greater Boston area, the epicenter of robotics innovation. They say that their diverse team of engineers come from all over the world to design, test, and build our dynamic fleet of robots and mechatronic systems.

Amazon and Walmart are very clear that robots won’t take away human jobs, but that’s mostly PR. After all, they are two of the biggest employers in America, if not the biggest.

In this column on robotics, we aren’t going to just replicate PR, we’re actually going to try and make sense of it. Walmart and Amazon have adopted robots, with mixed success. JD.com are by far the leader in warehouse automation and I actually think Coupang will get fairly good at this, in logistics however Amazon and Alibaba are world-class.

Engadget had a good headline:

Proteus is Amazon's first fully autonomous warehouse robot

Amazon has also introduced a new robotic arm and scanning technology for fulfillment centers.

Warehouse operations is complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. Increased automation will make it more seamless.

On June 3rd, 2022 Walmart said it will open four new fulfillment centers over the next three years that the company says will let it pack and ship online orders more quickly. Walmart has not made much headway vs. Amazon in terms of E-commerce penetration, even after investing $Billions.

Read more