What is Robco?

Is Robco the European Shopify of Robotics?

Hey Guys,

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

With modular robots and an innovative “digital twin” software platform, Roman, Paul and Constantin are helping solve the labor shortage problem. - Sequoia

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:

By handling tasks like machine tending and palletizing, robots can not only boost productivity and revenue, but allow time-strapped employees to focus on more creative work. For Luciana, it was a déjà vu moment—a very similar situation to the one UiPath founder Daniel Dines was working to solve five years earlier when she met him at the Series A, only that had been for virtual processes rather than physical. (In fact, Daniel has noticed the parallels himself and is joining Robco’s round as an angel.)