Avidbots sweeps up $70M for industrial cleaning robots

-
Avidbots Neo 2

An Avidbot autonomously cleans a mall floor surface. | Source: Avidbots

Avidbots, a producer of industrial cleaning robots, announced that it closed a $70 million Series C funding round. The company plans to use the round of funding to expand its fleet of robots and enhance its autonomy software. 

Avidbots hopes to bring its industrial cleaning robots to customers in automation growth markets, like the United States, and worldwide by investing in its sales and marketing efforts. It plans to add over 100 employees in product, engineering, sales and marketing over the next 12 months. 

“This is a special milestone in our company’s development. A special thank you to all our customers around the world as well as Avidbotters past and present for their tireless efforts to help us get here,” Faizan Sheikh, Avidbots CEO and co-founder, said. “We are very excited about the future as this financing allows us to accelerate our timelines for bringing new products to market as well as continuously improve our autonomous driving software and service for existing customers to deliver an even better experience and greater value.”

The company’s flagship robot Neo 2 is an autonomous robot floor scrubber. The robot can help clean businesses, airports, schools and warehouses. 

Jeneration Capital, a capital asset manager specializing in technology and tech-enabled investments in China, led the funding round. The funding round also included existing investors True Ventures, Next 47, SOSV, GGV Capital, BDC Capital, Golden Ventures and Kensington Capital Partners. BMO Capital Partners, Golden Vision Capital and Nicola Wealth were new investors in the round. 

“We are excited to partner with Avidbots as they continue to deliver best-in-class robotic solutions to meet the industry demand for automation in the commercial cleaning marketplace,” said Tony Zhang, partner at Jeneration Capital. “Our investment solidifies the confidence we have in robotics players that deliver strong value-add solutions that lessen employee workload and fatigue levels from laborious work. As a result, employees can focus on higher-value activities across the organization.”

Avidbots has raised $107 million to date, and currently has more than 1,000 robots deployed in more than a dozen countries throughout North America, Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Europe. Along with the funding, Avidbots announced that it has doubled down on its investment in Kitchener-Waterloo by securing additional space to support R&D and testing. 

The post Avidbots sweeps up $70M for industrial cleaning robots appeared first on The Robot Report.



from The Robot Report - Robotics News, Analysis & Research https://ift.tt/bPdiV25
via artificialconference

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Valiant TMS and Realtime Robotics partner to cut programming, cycle times

-
Image
Valiant TMS is integrating robot motion optimization as a service. Source: Realtime Robotics Realtime Robotics today announced that Valiant TMS will integrate its Optimization-as-a-Service offering with customers’ manufacturing operations. The companies said the combination of Realtime’s proprietary software and engineering expertise with Valiant TMS’s manufacturing industry experience will improve the efficiency and productivity of automated operations. With Optimization-as-a-Service, companies can identify and eliminate production bottlenecks, significantly reducing cycle time and programming time, said Realtime Robotics. “Manufacturers are always looking for ways to improve their production processes, but few have the time or resources to spend on such a lengthy, involved task,” said Peter Howard, CEO of Realtime Robotics, in a release . “We’re thrilled that our optimization solution has struck a chord with so many, automating the task of generating and testing potential layou...
Read more

Ocado wins UK patent lawsuit over Autostore

-
Image
On the left, Autostore’s ASRS, and on the right, Ocado’s ASRS. | Source: Autostore, Ocado Yesterday, the UK High Court ruled that Autostore’s patents, which have been the subject of a patent infringement case against Ocado , were invalid, and that Ocado did not infringe upon them. Both Autostore and Ocado operate automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) that operate on similar principles. Autostore filed the lawsuit in October 2020, when it asserted that Ocado infringed upon six of its patents. The European Patent Office invalidated two of these patents before judgment was made on the case, and two other patents were withdrawn by Autostore before the hearing started.  Judge Hacon invalidated the remaining two patents because AutoStore had disclosed its technology publically in a business deal with the Central Bank of Russia before the company filed its patents. Halcon ruled that even if the patents were valid, the Ocado Smart Platform (OSP) did not infringe on the...
Read more

Update on AgTech automation at CNHI

-
Image
The Robot Report Podcast · Update on AgTech automation at CNHI The Robot Report Podcast · 2023 year in review: GenAI, humanoids dominate robotics industry   In Episode 138 of The Robot Report Podcast, co-hosts Mike Oitzman and Eugene Demaitre catch up with Marc Kermisch, global chief digital and information officer at CNH Industrial, or CNHI. Kermisch takes us through the latest developments at CNHI in agriculture autonomy and digitization, explaining how robots and data can help farmers and growers improve yields and efficiency. We also recap the latest robotics news and walk through an update from robotics and automation companies that attended this month’s 2024 CES show. News of the week Locus Robotics layoffs The mobile robot maker last week confirmed that it had a “small, targeted RIF,” or reduction in force. North American robot orders dropped last year, according to the Association for Advancing Automation ( A3 ). Warehouse construction also declined by 2...
Read more