by tyler | Apr 10, 2024 | Tech
Humanoids have sucked a lot of the air out of the room. It is, after all, a lot easier to generate press for robots that look and move like humans. Ultimately, however, both the efficacy and scalability of such designs have yet to be proven out. For a while now, Collaborative Robotics founder Brad Porter has eschewed robots that look like people. Machines that can potentially reason like people, however, is another thing entirely.
As the two-year-old startup’s name implies, Collaborative Robotics (Cobot for short) is interested in the ways in which humans and robots will collaborate, moving forward. The company has yet to unveil its system, though last year, Porter told me that the “novel cobot” system is neither humanoid nor a mobile manipulator mounted to the back of an autonomous mobile robot (AMR).
The system has, however, begun to be deployed in select sites.
“Getting our first robots in the field earlier this year, coupled with today’s investment, are major milestones as we bring cobots with human-level capability into the industries of today,” Porter says. “We see a virtuous cycle where more robots in the field lead to improved AI and a more cost-effective supply chain.”
Further deployment will be helped along by a fresh $100 million Series B, led by General Catalyst and featuring Bison Ventures, Industry Ventures and Lux Capital. That brings the Bay Area firm’s total funding up to $140 million. General Catalyst’s Teresa Carlson is also joining the company in an advisory role.
Cobot has the pedigree, as well, with staff that includes former Apple, Meta, Google, Microsoft, NASA and Waymo employees. Porter himself spent more than 13 years at Amazon. When his run with the company ended in summer 2020, he was leading the retail giant’s industrial robotics team.
Amazon became one of the world’s top drivers and consumer of industrial robotics during that time, and the company’s now ubiquitous AMRs stand as a testament to the efficiency of pairing human and robot workers together.
AI will, naturally, be foundational to the company’s promise of “human problem solving,” while the move away from the humanoid form factor is a bid, in part, to reduce the cost of entry for deploying these systems.
by tyler | Apr 4, 2024 | Tech
Agility Robotics on Thursday confirmed that it has laid off a “small number” of employees. The well-funded Oregon-based firm says the job loss is part of a company-wide focus on commercialization efforts.
“As part of Agility’s ongoing efforts to structure the company for success, we have parted ways with a small number of employees that were not central to core product development and commercialization,” the company wrote in a statement provided to TechCrunch. “At the same time, we are focused on meeting the extraordinary demand for bipedal robots across industrial use cases. That means ramping up production of Digit while continuing to win top-tier global customers, and adding new roles that meet these goals. We believe today’s actions will allow us to focus on the areas that drive productization, commercialization, and production of Digit.”
Agility was ahead of the industrial humanoid curve with its bipedal robot, Digit. The firm was spun out of research conducted at Oregon State University. There’s been no lack of interest in its impressive legged robots over the years. Ford was an early champion, as Agility explored Digit’s last-mile-delivery potential. Ultimately, however, those efforts were placed on the back burner, as the company shifted focus to understaffed warehouses.
There’s been no lack of funding for Agility’s efforts, despite a general slowdown in investments in and adoption of robotic systems, both of which can be seen as corrections following a massive pandemic-fueled boom.
Two years ago this month, the company announced a $150 million Series B. Amazon notably participated in the round by way of its Industrial Innovation Fund. The retail giant subsequently announced that it would pilot Digits as part of its fulfillment center workflow. The pilots have since ended, but neither company has announced next steps.
A number of other humanoid robotics firms have announced their own pilots in recent months, including Figure with BMW and Apptronik with Mercedes . Last month at Modex, Agility showcased updates to Digit’s end effectors designed specifically for automotive manufacturing workflows.
Agility has also made a number of high-profile hires over the past year, including Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson joining as chief executive, Fetch CEO Melonee Wise as CTO and former Apple and Ford executive Aindrea Campbell in as COO.
The company’s jobs page currently lists five open roles, largely focused on engineering and manufacturing.
by tyler | Mar 26, 2024 | Tech
Since the last time we spoke, Viam didn’t pivot exactly, according to founder and CEO Eliot Horowitz — it’s more of a “rebrand.” Roughly six months ago, the Manhattan-based startup made a concerted effort to broaden its focus. The development platform previously focused its outreach on robotics firms. It’s a large and rapidly expanding category, but Horowitz explains that the company’s vision is larger.
“The platform has always been — and will always be — for a very wide range of things, including robotics, including IoT and smart homes, industrial automation and all these things that have sensors and actuators and compute,” the executive tells TechCrunch. “Some time over the summer, we realized that when we were emailing or talking to people, when they saw robotics on our homepage, it basically sent them into a tizzy. They were like, ‘we’re not a robotics company — we do food processing, we do PLC automation, we do boats, we’re not robots.’”
Further complicating messaging was the fact that — while the company is simply named “Viam” — its various social media platforms are “Viam Robotics,” owing to the fact that it was unable to secure the four-letter word. The firm also spent much of its initial outreach efforts focusing on robotics. Viam’s large office overlooking New York City’s Lincoln Center has a lab space, where members of the local robotics community are invited in to use its platform to develop automation applications.
The rebranding included mixing up demos and focusing on new applications beyond robotics. The list includes verticals like insurance and marine — the latter hits particularly close to home, as he talks to me via Zoom from the bridge of his boat. He adds that the company has been on-boarding some large enterprise organizations, but Viam is not yet at a point where it’s able to disclose names.
Certainly interest remains on the investor side. Viam this week announced a $45 million Series B, featuring Union Square Ventures and Battery Ventures. The latest round brings the company’s total funding up to $87 million. Viam says the funding will go toward R&D and ramping up commercial enterprise deployment. Horowitz tells me that Viam is also actively expanding its 100-person headcount.
He admits that the company may still have something of a messaging problem, however, when it comes to determining a pithier elevator pitch to describe precisely what it is that Viam’s software does nearly a year after its commercial launch.
“I wouldn’t say we don’t have the greatest answer,” he confesses. “When people ask me what I do and what [Viam’s software] does, I usually use an example from their life. As an example, has your HVAC ever broken? How do you find your coffeemaker? If you know someone for a minute, you know something in their life where the software/hardware interface is bad. We are a platform that lives at the intersection of real-world hardware and real-world software and the cloud and machine learning. There is no thing like us. There is no comparison.”
by tyler | Mar 26, 2024 | Tech
Since the last time we spoke, Viam didn’t pivot exactly, according to founder and CEO Eliot Horowitz — it’s more of a “rebrand.” Roughly six months ago, the Manhattan-based startup made a concerted effort to broaden its focus. The development platform previously focused its outreach on robotics firms. It’s a large and rapidly expanding category, but Horowitz explains that the company’s vision is larger.
“The platform has always been — and will always be — for a very wide range of things, including robotics, including IoT and smart homes, industrial automation and all these things that have sensors and actuators and compute,” the executive tells TechCrunch. “Some time over the summer, we realized that when we were emailing or talking to people, when they saw robotics on our homepage, it basically sent them into a tizzy. They were like, ‘we’re not a robotics company — we do food processing, we do PLC automation, we do boats, we’re not robots.’”
Further complicating messaging was the fact that — while the company is simply named “Viam” — its various social media platforms are “Viam Robotics,” owing to the fact that it was unable to secure the four-letter word. The firm also spent much of its initial outreach efforts focusing on robotics. Viam’s large office overlooking New York City’s Lincoln Center has a lab space, where members of the local robotics community are invited in to use its platform to develop automation applications.
The rebranding included mixing up demos and focusing on new applications beyond robotics. The list includes verticals like insurance and marine — the latter hits particularly close to home, as he talks to me via Zoom from the bridge of his boat. He adds that the company has been on-boarding some large enterprise organizations, but Viam is not yet at a point where it’s able to disclose names.
Certainly interest remains on the investor side. Viam this week announced a $45 million Series B, featuring Union Square Ventures and Battery Ventures. The latest round brings the company’s total funding up to $87 million. Viam says the funding will go toward R&D and ramping up commercial enterprise deployment. Horowitz tells me that Viam is also actively expanding its 100-person headcount.
He admits that the company may still have something of a messaging problem, however, when it comes to determining a pithier elevator pitch to describe precisely what it is that Viam’s software does nearly a year after its commercial launch.
“I wouldn’t say we don’t have the greatest answer,” he confesses. “When people ask me what I do and what [Viam’s software] does, I usually use an example from their life. As an example, has your HVAC ever broken? How do you find your coffeemaker? If you know someone for a minute, you know something in their life where the software/hardware interface is bad. We are a platform that lives at the intersection of real-world hardware and real-world software and the cloud and machine learning. There is no thing like us. There is no comparison.”
by tyler | Mar 19, 2024 | Tech
The Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) this week announced the launch of the similarly named Open Source Robotics Alliance (OSRA). The new initiative is designed to maintain development for and maintenance of open source robotics projects, with a particular focus on the OSRF’s own robot operating system (ROS).
First released in 2007 by erstwhile Bay Area incubator Willow Garage, ROS has played a foundational role in robotics development for decades. In a show of support, Nvidia and Qualcomm have both signed on as “Platinum” members for the new alliance, along with Alphabet’s X spinout Intrinsic.
“Nvidia develops with ROS 2 to bring accelerated computing and AI to developers, researchers, and commercial applications,” Nvidia VP Gordon Grigor notes in a release tied to the news. “As an inaugural platinum member of OSRA, we will collaborate to advance open-source robotics throughout the ecosystem by aiding development efforts and providing governance and continuity.”
In the same release, Intrinsic CEO Wendy Tan White notes, “From the numerous contributions made by our team at Intrinsic across projects like ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF as part of the Open Robotics community, to our acquisition of the Open Source Robotics Corporation (OSRC), we’ve invested deeply in the open source community, and we look forward to continuing our support of the ecosystem as an inaugural member of the OSRA.”
Intrinsic acquired Open Robotics’ commercial wing at the tail end of 2022. Former Open Robotics CEO Brian Gerkey (who current serves as Intrinsic’s CTO) has been appointed to the OSRA’s board of directors.
As far as the hierarchy is concerned, this seems to be standard tech industry consortium stuff. The OSRF calls it a “a mixed membership and meritocratic model,” in the vein of open source alliances like the Linux Foundation. Of course, the level or meritocratic presentation depends on the level of membership an organization commits to — though pricing notably goes up based on headcount.
Along with ROS, the OSRA is tasked with governing Open Robotics’ Gazebo simulator, and Open-RMF, which is designed to serve as a common language to increase robotic system interoperability across companies. Certainly the inclusion of tech behemoths like Nvidia and Qualcomm should go a ways toward helping cement such standards. Both companies are involved in the creation of reference design robots, which serve as the foundation for various robot makers.
Other members include Clearpath and PickNik Robotics. Silicon Valley Robotics is serving as an associate member, while Ubuntu developer Canonical is serving in a support role.
