FOURTH QUARTER TRANSACTIONS REPORT 2017 roboticsbusinessreview.com
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Year’s End Provides Perspective on SoftBank, which already makes Automation Transactions the Pepper By Jim Nash robot, made multiple bids One of the most significant investment trends in robotics last year was the at robotics accelerating appetite of SoftBank Group Corp. It is beginning to give the leadership this past year. industry a luster typically bestowed by venture capitalists operating in other digital technologies.
Of course, activity in robotics reflects the overall technology ecosystem. To the frustration of a lot of robotics entrepreneurs and at least some of their backers, industry financings have almost entirely remained fewer and smaller, even as hardware and, to a lesser extent, software development has surged.
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This is where one must acknowledge the conventional wisdom dictating that investment in hardware seems less exciting than deals involving software, and therefore gets ignored by get-rich-quick money people — primarily venture capitalists.
But corporate venture funds and direct corporate investments are putting money into robotics efforts. Either they are fine with hardware, or they see it as a delivery mechanism for advanced software, networking, and services. After all, that (and, in Apple’s case, status) is what differentiates smartphones in the eyes of consumers. The same could soon be true for augmented reality and commoditized industrial automation.
This brings the topic back around to Japanese technology conglomerate — and newly minted corporate-venture giant — SoftBank. Five of the year’s top 11 deals in terms of value involved SoftBank, either as the sole investor or as lead.
Before spotlighting those five transactions, it is very much worth mentioning that SoftBank is rumored to be raising a sister fund to its behemoth, still-open, $93 billion Vision Fund (which is targeted to top out at $100 billion). Word is that the new fund might be the equal of the original purse.
It is likely that, as it has done with the private-sovereign Vision Fund, SoftBank will invite other deep pockets to join. Apple this year promised $1 billion to the Vision Fund in January, a deal that ranked No. 20 on our list.
How far afield could SoftBank look for investors in any new fund? Conceivably, pretty far. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia agreed in 2016 to be the Vision Fund’s lead investor, contributing up to $45 billion, by 2021.
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SOFTBANK LEADS THE YEAR SoftBank’s five biggest completed robotics deals for the year, conservatively estimated at $50 billion, show a desire to dominate an autonomous-vehicle future. They were:
The $31 billion buyout of U.K. chip designer ARM Holdings in September. Microprocessors designed by ARM are more energy-efficient than those of other market leaders, making them attractive to vendors serving the Internet of Things. ARM chips already reside in the phones and tablets of, among others, Samsung and Apple. The Arm deal is the largest of those tracked by Robotics Business Review in 2017.
A $9 billion stake taken in Uber Technologies Inc. by an investment group led by SoftBank in late December. SoftBank itself how holds 15% of Uber shares. Another 2.5% is held by the other investors in the group, including Sequoia Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, and mammoth Chinese technology conglomerate Tencent Holdings Ltd. (Two notes: Tencent paid $1.8 billion in March for a 5% share of Tesla Inc. Also, Alphabet Inc.’s growth investment fund, CapitalG, put $1 billion into Uber competitor Lyft Inc. in October.)
The $5.5 billion April investment into Chinese ride-hailer Didi Chuxing. SoftBank’s piece amounted to $5 billion, partly via its holding company, SoftBank Group Capital Ltd.
A direct investment (not through the Vision Fund) of $4 billion into Didi just eight months after its first Didi purchase in 2017. This time, SoftBank reportedly acted with a United Arab Emirates sovereign fund, the Mubadala Investment Co. It has not been announced how the round was divided.
SoftBank took a reported $4 billion stake in U.S. chipmaker Nvidia Corp., acknowledged in May. Nvidia specializes in graphics chips that can be used to efficiently process the torrent of data inherent in mobile robotics, including
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driverless vehicles.
SoftBank’s purchase of walking robot maker Boston Dynamics got a lot of attention because of YouTube darlings Atlas and BigDog. It’s more intriguing, however, because it acquired the company from Google parent Alphabet and because SoftBank already has the Pepper humanoid robots.
NVIDIA KEEPS PACE FOR SELF-DRIVING CARS Nvidia itself made a couple appearances on our list. In September, it participated in a $52 million stake in JingChi Inc., a self-driving vehicle firm in China. JingChi is racing to deploy a fleet of Level 4 autonomous vehicles this year.
Such autonomous vehicles might well begin with driverless trucks, fleet vehicles, and deliveries. They could also improve mobile robots in warehouses and public spaces. On the AI side, Komatsu is working with Nvidia for construction sites.
Nvidia also took part in a $20 million round into Chinese software and sensor maker TuSimple. The startup’s goal is to get autonomous vehicles on the road using just visible-light cameras and millimeter-wave radar.
Of course, as with everything digital, SoftBank investments have a long tail — in this case, sub-billion-dollar investments in companies involved in autonomous- vehicle endeavors or endeavors that can be refocused to that area.
Along the tail is a $502 billion round that it led in May into U.K. cloud-based software maker Improbable Worlds Ltd. Venture funds Andreessen Horowitz and Horizons Ventures also participated. Improbable’s SpatialOS is used today to create detailed, realistic and sprawling computer-game environments. It could be used as a mapping tool for driverless vehicles, too, though.
Five months later, almost to the day, the Vision Fund led a $164 million round in Mapbox Inc., a software firm making maps, location search and direction
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services for mobile uses. Joining SoftBank were the Foundry Group, DFJ Growth, DBL Partners, and Thrive Capital.
In July, SoftBank invested in Nauto Inc., maker of sophisticated software that can, in real time, alert commercial drivers and fleet managers to dangers. The resulting data can help coach drivers and support managers after incidents. SoftBank and venture legend Greylock Partners led the $159 million round, with participation by BMW iVentures, General Motors Ventures, Toyota AI Ventures, Allianz Group, Playground Global and Draper Nexus.
The tail goes on (and on), but it bears mentioning that SoftBank led a $120 million round into Lemonade Inc., an artificial intelligence-supported insurance startup. Lemonade positions itself as a carrier that Millennials can trust, and Millennials will be the first big demographic for autonomous cars.
Not being in the staid mode of legacy insurers, it is safe to assume Lemonade will take driverless vehicles seriously as a market opportunity. Also participating in the round were Google Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Thrive Capital, Allianz, Aleph, General Catalyst, Sound Ventures, Tusk Ventures and XL Innovate.
INTEL TAKES MOBILEYE FOR A SPIN As significant as were SoftBank’s moves, no analysis of 2017 would be complete without noting Intel Corp.’s $15.3 billion acquisition of Mobileye N.V. in March. The purchase was a victory for some of those in all industries facing radical change. In this case, Mobileye represents a markedly low-tech answer to the question, how do we get automation on the roads today?
Every other major non-auto-manufacturing player in autonomous vehicles is looking for total suites of features, sensors and deliverables. Valid though that approach is, it chains contenders to an all-or-nothing starting gate.
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Automakers and Intel/Mobileye (and Nvidia/TuSimple) are creating gradual progress, installing systems as the technologies mature. Mobileye’s unassuming visible-light cameras can be linked into existing vehicles systems and out over wireless networks to fleet managers and other wide-horizon companies and agencies.
MIDEA’S KUKA ACQUIRES VISUAL COMPONENTS A final note: German industrial-robotics maker KUKA AG — owned by Chinese appliance maker Midea Group Co. — acquired a 3D-simulation software maker in December. Finland-based Visual Components writes code used to plan factories, squeezing inefficiencies out of planning itself, of course, but also of manufacturing operations and facilities. No value was placed on the transaction.
KUKA had already been using Visual Component applications to design manufacturing setups it creates for its traditional heavy-industry buyers. The software proved versatile enough that it could enable KUKA to entertain system sales in new markets that have differing layout requirements. Those markets could include home-appliance sectors, for example.
LOOKING AHEAD With January behind us and looking further into 2017, it’s clear that manufacturing will continue to invest in automation, albeit cautiously given labor issues and economic uncertainty.
Similarly, supply operations will look to robotics and the Internet of Things (IoT), but they will also need to respond to changing trade and labor policies. The accuracy and speed of autonomous systems and development of mobile piece-picking systems will no doubt help robotics usage continue to grow. The market for industrial automation will grow to $71.75 billion by 2023, predicts Market Insights Reports.
Ubiquitous sensors will feed IoT, improving predictive maintenance and
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potentially providing insights to restructure production.
Will collaborative robots continue their growth in small and midsize enterprises? Major cobot providers, such as Rethink Robotics and Universal Robots, have grown significantly year over year with no sign of slowing.
The flexibility of cobots should help, as should the robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) business model. Growth will depend on taxes, the global economy, and consumer demand, but most analysts are bullish on their prospects. Infrastructure, including construction and utilities, will be another market benefiting from robots and drones.
By contrast, social and household robots have a ways to go yet, despite AI advances, as evidenced by Jibo’s challenges.
All of the past year’s investments in AI and IoT may start to come to fruition, as software and — even more importantly — big data become essential to efficient and competitive businesses.
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Warehouse Robot Supplier Canvas Technology Raises $15M to Speed Development By Eugene Demaitre
Canvas Technology Inc. in December announced that it has raised $15 million in Series A financing. The Boulder, Colo.-based industrial automation provider has built an autonomous system for efficient movement of warehouse robots.
Playground Global led the funding round with participation from previous investors, including Xplorer Capital, AME Cloud Ventures, and Morado Ventures.
The market for warehouse robots will experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.8% between 2017 and 2022 to reach $4.44 billion, predicts Markets and Markets. About 2 million manufacturing jobs will be unfilled in the next decade because of shortages of skilled labor, according to the Robotics Industry Association.
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Canvas Technology is using high-performance sensors and software to enable warehouse robots to operate in unstructured environments.
Canvas Technology’s system uses computer vision for Canvas continuous mapping to plan the best navigation plan for warehouse robots. Technology The intention is for affordable, safe, and autonomous operations, both indoors is using high- and outdoors. performance sensors and software to The company’s system includes proprietary 3D sensors and an end-to-end enable warehouse software package that it said can be used on mobile warehouse robots such robots to operate as the Canvas Autonomous Cart. It’s also designed to connect with warehouse in unstructured management or enterprise resource planning systems. environments.
Canvas Technology said its platform excels “in unstructured environments such as lean manufacturing, high-growth and dynamic warehouses, outdoor logistics, or construction sites.”
BACKING A CONNECTED FUTURE WITH WAREHOUSE ROBOTS Playground Global backs entrepreneurial companies “building the future of the connected world through software-defined hardware.”
“The Canvas team has created a powerful vertically integrated robot operating system, with perception and speed that rivals anything we’ve seen,” said Andy Rubin, co-founder of Playground Global. “We think it will not only bring enormous gains to the manufacturing and logistics sectors, but [also] to many other industries that need a turnkey autonomous technology.”
“We’re excited for this backing from Playground,” said Jonathan McQueen, CEO of Canvas Technology. “We see incredible demand for both intelligent material moving solutions, as well as autonomous technology that powers a myriad of vehicles and hardware platforms.”
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Logistics Robots Boom Benefits Locus Robotics as Holiday Season Starts By Eugene Demaitre
As the holiday shopping season began, consumer expectations were higher than ever for rapid, accurate order fulfillment. Warehouse operations must contend with labor shortages and growing demand, so logistics robots are key to meeting this demand.
Mobile robot provider Locus Robotics said in November that it has raised $25 million in Series B funding. Scale Venture Partners (ScaleVP) led the funding round.
“Locus Robotics’ collaborative robots allow warehouse operators to significantly increase worker productivity while economically closing the growing labor gap,” said Rick Faulk, CEO of Wilmington, Mass.-based
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Locus Robotics. “In an economy largely dominated by Amazon, Locus arms Tractica independent operators with the means to compete effectively.” forecasts strong growth in logistics robots. Industry analysts agree that e-commerce demand is likely to make supply (Click here to chain automation one of the fastest-growing segments for robotics in the next enlarge.) few years. The global market for logistics robots will experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33% from 2016 to 2020, according to Technavio.
Annual shipments of logistics robots will increase from 40,000 units in 2016 to 620,000 units worth $2.15 billion by 2021, predicts Tractica. The logistics market will grow from $1.9 billion in 2016 to $22.4 billion in 2021, forecasts Research and Markets. Nielsen predicts a 20% CAGR and a $4 trillion global market by 2020.
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Warehouse automation is one of the strongest areas for mobile robot growth.
“Many companies realize that e-commerce is the fastest-growing part of their business,” said Bruce Welty, president of Locus Robotics. “Last year was the crossover — for every dollar lost in their stores, they’re gaining a dollar in e-commerce. It’s still early days, though.”
“A week ago, I was in Indianapolis, where there are a lot of warehouses. In driving to lunch — probably three-quarters of a mile — I must have seen 40 ‘Help Wanted’ signs,” Faulk told Robotics Business Review. “Getting enough labor is such a massive problem, which we address head-on. We’re seeing a lot of traction.”
BUILDING THE MARKET “Robotics in fulfillment is one particular area where robotic technology maturity and market readiness have come together in a perfect storm,” said John Santagate, research director for service robotics at IDC. “The acquisition of Kiva [Systems] by Amazon and the subsequent privatization of the technology left a gap in the market which several robotics vendors have been working to capture.”
“We feel a little bit responsible for the market being competitive,” Welty said. “After Kiva got acquired, I jumped on a plane to see who had robots for fulfillment.”
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“Four or five [companies] entered the market after my conversations with them,” he said. “A lot of them don’t know what they’re doing; they’re looking for a problem to solve.”
By contrast, Locus Robotics grew out of an effort by Quiet Logistics to improve its warehouse operations, not just to develop an interesting technology.
“With 1 million square feet, we know the problems, we have all the software,” Welty said. “Our own employees are using the robots, so there’s nothing between us and the users in terms of solving problems.”
“Our potential customers are everybody who has to ship items ordered online — large and small companies, it’s a crazy big opportunity,” he added. “Alibaba is bigger than Amazon.”
“We try to invest just when that innovative technology is ready to jump from an interesting idea that might happen, to a core business imperative that is happening right now. For collaborative robotics, the time is right now,” said Rory O’Driscoll, general partner at ScaleVP. “We anticipate an explosion of this trend in the next few years, and Locus will be at the heart of that trend.”
“The warehouse is really Ground Zero for Industry 4.0, which is really discussed within the context of manufacturing,” said Karen Leavitt, chief marketing officer at Locus. “If you look at all the components — big data, IoT [Internet of Things], cloud computing, and autonomous robots -- these are helping warehouses.”
“New warehouses can have an appropriate balance of people and robots,” she noted. “For competitive advantage, they could hire even more labor. In the not-too-distant future, we’ll see consumers become employees — there’s a win-win scenario.”
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“We’re also finding it’s a worldwide market,” said Faulk. “There’s a lot of interest from Europe and Asia, where some folks might think that the lower wage rates would dampen the market. The real problem is finding enough workers. We’ll expand overseas next year.”
DHL USES LOGISTICS ROBOTS “Integrating LocusBots into one of our sites has increased productivity twofold, and the associate feedback is positive,” said Adrian Kumar, vice president of Solutions Design North America at DHL Supply Chain. “Locus has been agile with their ability to adapt and change as we learn from these innovations.”
“Our first public deployments are with DHL and a surgical device provider,” said Welty. “They must be accurate and timely; there’s no room for error.”
“One of the biggest problems is that every 3PL [third-party logistics] operation is somewhat unique,” said Leavitt. “We want to be measuring the right things at the right place at the right time.”
“Pickers and stockers at Quiet Logistics love our robots,” she said. “They almost fought to operate them, so we had to put them on a schedule. We’ve saved about 80% of labor from pre-Kiva, and 50% from Kiva.”
“The nice thing about our solution is that it’s plug-and-play,” said Faulk. “We do some integration with the warehouse management system [WMS], and then it’s a fairly easy rollout.”
“Unlike Amazon, you don’t have to go down to bare concrete,” he said. “You just need five-foot aisles, with very few infrastructure changes. We can deploy in almost any facility worldwide.”
“The key to Industry 4.0 isn’t just interaction among machines, but interactions between humans and machines,” Leavitt said. “The rise of collaborative robots
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Locus Robotics is ready to help warehouse operators meet holiday demand.
takes machines from being out of bounds to assisting humans in the real world on a regular basis.”
SCALING UP WITH LOGISTICS ROBOT SOFTWARE, SERVICES Locus Robotics said it plans to use its Series B funding to invest in product development and marketing activities and to expand into international markets.
The company also plans to build up its fleet of mobile logistics robots, which are offered in a robots-as-a-service (RaaS) model. Locus said this “subscription business model allows customers to solve this challenge without a large-scale capital investment.”
“We know in a building where the humans and robots are and where the inventory is,” said Faulk. “Fusing that information, along with the order stream coming in, we’re saying that at minimum, we can double the rate or more from manual work.”
“With RaaS, there’s no million-dollar capital outlay, and customers can see
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“We recently hit these benefits of 35% in three to six weeks from deployment,” he added. the milestone of “Another nice thing is that a company can start small — with 25,000 square 1.3 million units feet — prove the economics, and then roll it out in a very modular fashion.” picked — it took three years, but “Locus has nine deployments, and we recently hit the milestone of 1.3 million it will take three months to do units picked -- it took three years, but it will take three months to do the next the next million.” million,” Welty said. “There are 2,500 warehouses in strategic accounts.” —Bruce Welty, president, Locus “We’re constantly iterating,” Welty said. “We’re looking at our robots from Robotics a component basis -- we’ve architected the hardware and software from the ground up, using off-the-shelf hardware where possible. The designed elements we build are proprietary and patented.”
He explained that Locus’ systems include mapping capabilities, autonomous motion, and obstacle avoidance and localization thanks to a combination of lidar cameras, software in the logistics robots’ base, and server-based software that connects to warehouse management systems.
“We came up with a cool algorithm for clustering -- which six orders do you want to put together?” Welty recalled. “By putting picks in vicinity to reduce travel time, it turned out to have huge implications for productivity, which bumped up by 40%.”
“We have a number of technology improvements on the drawing board that we’d like to develop with our new investment,” said Faulk. “It’s all about optimization, utilization, and the value proposition. We’re finding ways to use big data to help humans be more productive — the dark warehouse is some time away. We’re also looking at different use cases for robots within the warehouse such as put away and cycle time.”
GEARING UP FOR THE HOLIDAY RUSH “We’re part of a whole wave of trying to figure out how to keep costs down,”
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Welty said. “Everyone has seen what Amazon is doing, but you didn’t miss the boat with Kiva. There are now better options, and the next generation is here.”
“This coming holiday season will hit bigger and harder than last year,” he observed. “People’s expectations are still very high and getting higher in terms of placing orders and getting shipments in a couple of days. It’s very hard to do when the order volume goes up by a factor of 10.”
“Scaling up is a good problem to have,” Welty acknowledged. “There’s a very big market opportunity, we have a huge technological lead, and products are already out today. We have a big wave of orders coming in 2018.”
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Veo Robotics Raises $12M for Intelligent Industrial Robots By Steve Crowe
Veo Robotics Inc., a Cambridge, Mass.-based startup creating intelligent, human- aware systems for industrial robotics, raised $12 million in Series A funding in October 2017. Lux Capital and GV, formerly Google Ventures, led the round, while previous investor Next47 also contributed to the funding.
Veo is essentially creating brains for industrial robots. The software uses artificial intelligence, computer vision, and distributed 3D sensing that it claims will allow humans and heavy-duty industrial robots to work closely together. Veo’s system tracks the robots and everything around them.
Veo Robotics said the funding will accelerate the hiring of computer vision, engineering, product management and systems engineering roles, while also supporting support product development.
“There is a significant market opportunity for intelligent software that enables
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safe interaction between humans and machines in industrial environments,” said Andy Wheeler, general partner at GV.
In a blog post on Medium announcing the funding, Lux Capital’s Bilal Zuberi, who is joining Veo Robotics’ board of directors, wrote that “past efforts to create collaborative robots rendered them weak and slow.” He added that Veo’s approach will “free the robots from their cages while making them extremely safe for humans at the same time” to bring more flexibility, productivity and precision to the manufacturing process.
A TEAM EFFORT The team behind Veo Robotics was a major reason for the funding. Veo’s founders have a combined 50 years of experience in robotics, AI, sensor perception and industrial automation. CEO Patrick Sobalvarro was previously the president of RBR50 company Rethink Robotics; VP of Engineering Clara Vu was a co-founder of Harvest Automation and a senior software engineer at RBR50 company iRobot; and Senior Director of Hardware Scott Denenberg was previously an executive at Jentek Sensors Inc.
“Patrick, Clara, Scott and the rest of the team have a counter-intuitive vision for the future: If you improve the robots, manufacturers will be able to hire more people for better jobs,” said Zuri. “Veo is giving industrial robots the gift of perception and intelligence so these helpful machines can still do the dangerous heavy lifting, yet safely work alongside humans.”
Veo Robotics’ product won’t be available until sometime in 2019, but it’s already working with customers in the automotive, consumer packaged goods, household appliance, and automated distribution markets. Veo said it is gearing up for 3-4 pilots in 2018.
Veo Robotics, which already raised a $1 million seed round from Next47, currently has 10 employees and plans to expand to about 25 in the next six months.
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Robotics Transactions, Q4 2017
Amt. Company Investor, partner, aquirer (millions $) Transaction Type Date Industry, Technology Kryon Systems 12 investment 10/2/17 process automation IUVO Comau, Ossur investment 10/2/17 healthcare, exoskeleton manufacturing, medicine, Nanotronic Imaging Founder's Fund 30 investment 10/3/17 automated microscope pharmaceuticals, Ginkgo Bioworks Transcriptic 10 investment 10/3/17 automated lab work Endeavor Robotics U.S. Army 158 investment 10/4/17 military Intel Capital, Saudio manufacturing, transport, FogHorn Systems Inc. Aramco Energy Ventures, 30 investment 10/4/17 IoT Honeywell Ventures transportation, security, ZOA Robotics British Robotics Seed Fund 0.112 investment 10/4/17 legged robot BehaviorMatrix Element Data M&A 10/4/17 consumer, retail, AI Indico .406 Ventures 1.5 investment 10/5/17 AI, machine learning Aurora Flight Sciences transportation, automated Boeing M&A 10/5/17 Corp. piloting, air taxis consumer, retail, Zume Pizza 48 investment 10/6/17 pizza-making robot Beijing Beehive Agriculture Tendence Capital 9.4 investment 10/9/17 agriculture, drones Technology Co. robotic process ServiceNow Timico 1 investment 10/9/17 automation, AI transportation, lidar for Strobe Cruise (General Motors) M&A 10/9/17 self-driving cars SoftBank Vision Fund, transportation, self-driving MapBox 164 investment 10/10/17 Foundry Group cars, IoT manufacturing, medicine, Petuum SoftBank 93 investment 10/10/17 AI software transportation, self-driving Auro Robotics Ridecell 20 M&A 10/10/17 shuttles manufacturing, 3D Impossible Objects OCA Ventures 6.4 investment 10/10/17 printing healthcare, surgical, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Vitae Industries 1.8 investment 10/11/17 pharmaceutical Slater Technology Fund dispensing healthcare, surgical; hair Restoration Robotics 25.2 IPO 10/12/17 restoration industrial automation, Nilfisk Holding A/S NKT A/S IPO 10/12/17 cleaning robot PTG Precision industrial automation, Applied Automation M&A 10/16/17 Engineers collaborative robots
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Robotics Transactions, Q4 2017 Amt. Company Investor, partner, aquirer (millions $) Transaction Type Date Industry, Technology transportation, self-driving Foxconn IDG Capital 1500 investment 10/17/17 car fund Innovation Network Corp. Nileworks 7.1 investment 10/17/17 agriculture, drones of Japan Near Earth Autonomy Boeing M&A 10/17/17 military, aerial drones
manufacturing, AI, Sidense Corp. Synopsis M&A 10/17/17 IoT, programmable, nonvolatile memory Ontario government 30 investment 10/18/17 education, AI, STEM Lux Capital, Google industrial automation, Veo Robotics 12 investment 10/18/17 Ventures human-aware systems military, supply chain, RE2 Robotics U.S. Navy 0.125 gov't funding 10/18/17 Autonomous Robotic Cargo Handling transportation, ride- Lyft CapitalAG (Alphabet) 1000 investment 10/19/17 sharing Foundation Capital, Intel Mya Systems Inc. 18 investment 10/19/17 AI recruiter Capital construction, Built Robotics New Enterprise Associates 15 investment 10/19/17 infrastructure, self-driving excavator EchoPixel Inc. Intel Capital 8.5 investment 10/19/17 healthcare, 3D VR Robart CM-CIC 7.2 investment 10/19/17 consumer, IoT, household SoftBank Group 8800 investment 10/20/17 AI and IoT Horizon Robotics Intel Capital 100 investment 10/20/17 manufacturing, chips, AI Chongquing Nanshang HTI Cybernetics Inc. 50 M&A 10/20/17 manufacturing Investment Group medical, surgical, SPORT Titan Medical 9.1 investment 10/20/17 system Bossa Nova Robotics Intel Capital investment 10/20/17 retail, service robots Inc. EnerJex Resources AgEagle Aerial Systems M&A 10/20/17 agriculture, imagery Inc. Inc. healthcare, security, AI, LeapMind Intel Capital investment 10/20/17 deep learning nuTonomy Delphi Automotive 450 M&A 10/24/17 SDIC Fund Management transportation, Ninebot 100 investment 10/24/17 Co., China Mobile Fund Segway Loomo transportation, lidar for Blickfeld 4.25 investment 10/24/17 self-driving cars Society for Innovation and Bharati Robotics supply chain and Entrepreneurship, IITB investment 10/24/17 Systems cleaning robots Incubator
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Robotics Transactions, Q4 2017 Amt. Company Investor, partner, aquirer (millions $) Transaction Type Date Industry, Technology supply chain, India and Locus Recruit Holdings Co. investment 10/24/17 Japan Kindred Systems First Round Capital 27.5 investment 10/25/17 supply chain, AI aerospace, security, transportation, IoT, No Magic Dassault Systemes M&A 10/25/17 modeling for software, business processes Ikea Group, Momofuku agriculture, vertical, AeroFarms 6 investment 10/26/17 Group indoor manufacturing, 3D Ultimaker NP Million Capital investment 10/26/17 printing York Exponential LLC 4 investment 10/27/17 manufacturing, cobots transportation, lidar for Argo AI Princeton Lightwave M&A 10/27/17 self-driving cars Riverfield Surgical Toray Engineering 10 investment 10/30/17 healthcare, surgical Robot Lab
SPARX Group Ltd., Scrum transportation, robotics, Realtime Robotics Ventures and Toyota AI 2 investment 10/30/17 motion control Ventures engineering software, Altair Engineering Inc. 156 IPO 10/31/17 robotics simulation transportation, lidar for Innoviz 73 investment 10/31/17 self-driving cars Tencent Holdings Ltd., Wonder Workshop 41 investment 10/31/17 education, Dash and Dot SoftBank Korea Restoration Robotics healthcare, surgical, hair COO Gabriele Zingaretti 25 investment 10/31/17 Inc. restoration Atronics Engineering Inc., Advanced Material Handling Systems M&A 10/31/17 supply chain Production Systems Inc. Inc. manufacturing, metal 3D Markforged next47 30 investment 11/1/17 printing agriculture, aerial imaging, Ceres Imaging Romulus Capital 2.5 investment 11/1/17 analytics energy, materials PaR Systems Pohlad M&A 11/1/17 handling, healthcare, defense transportation, self-driving Optimus Ride Greycroft Partners 18 investment 11/2/17 cars O.G. Tech Ventures, transportation, radar for Arbe Robotics 9 investment 11/2/17 OurCrowd self-driving cars AMP Robotics Corp. 3.2 investment 11/2/17 recycling robot
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Robotics Transactions, Q4 2017 Amt. Company Investor, partner, aquirer (millions $) Transaction Type Date Industry, Technology GITIX AddVentures investment 11/3/17 logistics, AI and robotics The Hive Rockwell Automation investment 11/3/17 industrial automation, AI Omega I.am+ 117 investment 11/6/17 customer service, AI, bots transportation, Perbix Tesla 10.5 M&A 11/6/17 self-driving cars entertainment, GJS Robot Tencent Holdings Ltd. 5 investment 11/6/17 fighting robots education, Pienso Eniac Ventures 2.1 investment 11/6/17 machine learning defense, aerospace, Auguri Corp. Element Data M&A 11/6/17 machine learning Aubo (Beijing) industrial automation, Robotics Technology Fosun Group 9 investment 11/7/17 cobots Co AI, training robots, VR, Embodied Intelligence Amplify Partners 7 investment 11/7/17 OpenAI, UC Berkeley industrial automation, Tend.ai True Ventures 2 investment 11/7/17 robot arms, 3D printing, controls industrial automation, AI, Autologyx Beacon Capital 1.97 investment 11/7/17 process automation transportation, industrial Perbix Machine Co. Tesla Inc. M&A 11/7/17 automation Engineering and UK Industrial Strategy Physical Sciences energy, marine robotics, Challenge Fund, Heriot- 89.8 investment 11/8/17 Research Council, AI, robotics hubs Watt University Innovate UK
National Centre for energy, AI, sensors, robots University of Birmingham 55.08 investment 11/8/17 Nuclear Robotics for nuclear reactors
World Trade Ventures, industrial automation, Aquant.io SilverTech Ventures, 2.6 investment 11/8/17 AI, machine learning to AngeList Syndicate reduce downtime Atlantic Bridge University service, natural language Aylien 2.32 investment 11/8/17 Fund processing Beijing TechX Aviation industrial automation, Fosun RZ Capital 7.5 investment 11/9/17 Innovation military, drones Robot System Huachangda Intelligent Products in M&A 11/9/17 manufacturing Equipment Group Co. Scandinavia AB transportation, Uber SoftBank 10000 investment 11/13/17 self-driving cars industrial automation, EMV EIS Fund 1 EcoMachines Ventures 13.1 investment 11/13/17 transportation, closing March 2018
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Robotics Transactions, Q4 2017 Amt. Company Investor, partner, aquirer (millions $) Transaction Type Date Industry, Technology healthcare, robotic Myomo 10 IPO 11/13/17 arm brace transportation, large Nautilus Inc. Starburst Ventures investment 11/13/17 aircraft drones processors, Graphcore Seqouia Capital 50 investment 11/14/17 machine learning debt collection, TrueAccord Arbor Ventures Fund 22 investment 11/14/17 machine learning Corindus Vascular Louis A. Cannon 19 investment 11/14/17 healthcare, surgical Robotics Inc. retail, stock-keeping Bossa Nova Paxion, Intel Capital, others 17.5 investment 11/14/17 robots Vertex Ventures, Active.ai Creditease Holdings, 8.25 investment 11/14/17 finance, AI Dream Incubator Woo Lord David Alliance 7 investment 11/14/17 job matching, AI Corindus Vascular Essex Investment 1.2 investment 11/14/17 healthcare, surgical Robotics Inc. Management Co. SenseTime Qualcomm 500 investment 11/15/17 AI, facial recognition Catalia Health Ion Pacific 4 investment 11/15/17 healthcare, AI Engineering and Physical Queen Mary Sciences Research 1.34 investment 11/15/17 energy, cleanup robotics University of London Council education, entertainment, Ubtech Robotics Tencent Holdings Ltd. 400 investment 11/16/17 humanoid robots education, entertainment, Bots Alive Dash Robotics M&A 11/16/17 robot toys medical, surgical, Titan Medical 14 IPO 11/17/17 SPORT system Locus Robotics Scale Venture Partners 25 investment 11/20/17 supply chain Solido Design manufacturing, machine Siemens M&A 11/20/17 Automation learning processors industrial automation, Rokae THG Ventures 6 investment 11/21/17 food, textile, healthcare, lightweight robots consumer, AI, virtual Coneuron Idan Plotnik 4 investment 11/21/17 reality
supply chain, cobot Smart Robotics Vanderlande investment 11/21/17 development HNA Tourism Ventures, Yunji Technology Tencent, iFlytek, and investment 11/21/17 hospitality, service robot LanTing Capital
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Robotics Transactions, Q4 2017 Amt. Company Investor, partner, aquirer (millions $) Transaction Type Date Industry, Technology infrastructure, construction, Fastbrick Robotics 26.5 IPO 11/22/17 brick-laying robot AerDrone Irelandia 5 investment 11/26/17 drone leasing International Mazor Robotics Ltd. Sigma Planning Corp. 0.443 investment 11/26/17 healthcare, surgical industrial automation, CoreBell System Inc. Hancom MDS Inc. M&A 11/26/17 control software healthcare, surgical, ColubrisMX, XCath Crescent Enterprises 16 investment 11/27/17 microsurgery, microcatheters Science for Technological education, R&D, Innovation National 2 investment 11/27/17 collaborative robots Science Challenge Board Composite Capital, Sina, transportation, AI, self- TuSimple 55 investment 11/28/17 ZP Capital driving cars; see Aug. ReWalk Robotics Ltd. National Securities Corp. 1 investment 11/28/17 healthcare, exoskeleton SkyX Rimonim Fund investment 11/28/17 agriculture Pritzker Group Venture Seebo Interactive Ltd. Capital and Global IoT 16.5 investment 11/29/17 connected systems, IoT Technology Ventures industrial automation, CBW Automation Mold & Robotics Group M&A 11/29/17 food, supply chain, packaging Gemcity Engineering CapitalWorks LLC M&A 11/29/17 industrial automation and Manufacturing Farmer's Business T. Rowe Price Associates 110 investment 11/30/17 agriculture Network Inc. consumer, RS700 Everybot 0.0277 investment 11/30/17 mopping robot KLA Tencor, Lam Research, Tsing Capital, Robert Bosch Venture Capital transportation, 3D TetraVue investment 11/30/17 GmbH, Samsung Catalyst technology Fund and Nautilus Ventures Mauna Kea healthcare, laser Kepler Cheuvreux 6.4 investment 12/1/17 Technologies endoscopy transportation, Aurora Labs Maniv Investments LLC 2.7 investment 12/3/17 connected vehicles supply chain, logistics, Systems Inc. Chamberlain Group M&A 12/3/17 automated platforms infrastructure, Invert Robotics 6.3 investment 12/4/17 inspection robots Guardian Optical Maniv Mobility and Mirai consumer, transportation, 5.1 investment 12/4/17 Technologies Creation Fund sensors
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Robotics Transactions, Q4 2017 Amt. Company Investor, partner, aquirer (millions $) Transaction Type Date Industry, Technology Tortuga Agricultural Root Ventures, SVG agriculture, digital 2.6 investment 12/4/17 Technologies LLC Partners horticulture manufacturing, supply Odos Imaging Rockwell Automation M&A 12/4/17 chain, machine vision Kespry 33 investment 12/5/17 infrastructure, drones Wuhan Cobot industrial automation, Lan Fund 15.4 investment 12/5/17 Technology cobots mobile robots, PerceptIn Samsung Ventures 11 investment 12/5/17 machine vision Fraunhopver Gesellschaft, Unity Robotics 5 investment 12/5/17 retail, service robots High-Tech GRunderfonds Groove X Mirai Creation Investment 37.5 investment 12/6/17 consumer, social robot supply chain, mobile, Fetch Robotics Sway Ventures 25 investment 12/6/17 picking robots Credit Agricole Innovations Robocath 3 investment 12/6/17 healthcare, surgical et Territoires Myomo Inc. Roth Capital Partners 1.5 investment 12/6/17 healthcare, surgical New Valence Robotics manufacturing, Cincinnati Inc. M&A 12/7/17 Corp. 3D printing consumer, Yujin Robot Miele 47.56 M&A 12/8/17 vacuum cleaners Yangzhou Shuguang Optoelectronics Estun Automation Co. 50.16 M&A 12/11/17 security, military, sensors Automation Control Co. consumer, Ouster 27 investment 12/11/17 self-driving vehicles Sinopharm Capital, Virtual Incision 18 investment 12/11/17 healthcare, surgical Bluestem Capital Swarth Group, GlenRock, energy, automatic solar Ecoppia Gandyr, Harel Group 13 investment 12/12/17 panel cleaning Insurance and Finance Aerondyne JASTech Co. 4.7 investment 12/12/17 drones defense, energy, AI, Slingshot Aerospace ATX Seed Ventures 3.25 investment 12/12/17 signal processing ARM Innovation Ecosystem Kami 1.7 investment 12/12/17 finance, AI Accelerator Limited Walden Riverwood Vayyar Imaging Ltd. 45 investment 12/13/17 transportation, robotics Ventures Kasisto Oak HC/FT 17 investment 12/13/17 finance, AI autonomous vehicles, Upstream Security Charles River Ventures 9 investment 12/13/17 cybersecurity Bay Labs Khosla Ventures 5.5 investment 12/13/17 healthcare, AI
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Robotics Transactions, Q4 2017 Amt. Company Investor, partner, aquirer (millions $) Transaction Type Date Industry, Technology Mirror AI SoftBank Group Corp. 3.5 investment 12/13/17 consumer, AI Prototek Sheetmetal CORE Industrial Partners M&A 12/13/17 manufacturing Fabrication LLC LLC Shanghai Think-Force Electronic Technology YITU Tech 6.8 investment 12/18/17 manufacturing, AI Co. FluroSat 0.77 investment 12/18/17 agriculture Kraken Robotics Inc. 0.306 investment 12/18/17 energy, AUVs Next IT Verint Systems Inc. 30 M&A 12/19/17 consumer, security, AI China International Capital Maana Inc. 28 investment 12/19/17 industrial automation, AI Corp. supply chain, sensors for Canvas Technology Playground Global 15 12/19/17 mobile robots DigitalGenius Global Founders Capital 14.75 investment 12/19/17 consumer, service, AI healthcare, Bigfinite Crosslink Capital 8.5 investment 12/19/17 manufacturing, AI FarmWise Playground Global 5.7 investment 12/19/17 agriculture, IoT Fly Ventures 41 investment 12/20/17 finance, AI TransEnterix Great Belief International 29 M&A 12/20/17 healthcare, surgical Google Ventures, Telstra Ripcord 25 investment 12/20/17 office automation Ventures Fyusion 22 investment 12/20/17 machine vision agriculture, healthcare, Nuritas Cultivian Sandbox 20 investment 12/20/17 manufacturing, AI AlphaStar Capital Mazor Robotics Ltd. 0.414 investment 12/20/17 healthcare, surgical Management LLC planning software, Visual Components Kuka M&A 12/20/17 industrial automation Didi Chuxing transportation, SoftBank Group Corp. 4000 investment 12/21/17 Technology Co. self-driving vehicles Lemonade SoftBank Group 120 investment 12/21/17 insurance, AI Intuition Robotics Ltd. Mirai Creation Investment 6 investment 12/21/17 healthcare, social robot education, Robotical 0.381 investment 12/21/17 Marty the robot Blue Frog Robotics Fenox Venture Capital investment 12/21/17 consumer, social robot supply chain, Elroy Air Levitate Capital 4.6 investment 12/22/17 drone delivery Cobiro ApS European Commission 2 investment 12/22/17 consumer, AI Vackbot Lenovo Group Ltd. M&A 12/22/17 security, AI SingularityNET 36 investment 12/23/17 finance, AI, blockchain Terbium Labs Glasswing Ventures 6 investment 12/26/17 security, AI
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Robotics Transactions, Q4 2017 transportation, AI, Uber Technology Inc. SoftBank Group Corp. 7700 investment 12/28/17 self-driving cars ICS Robotics and agriculture, healthcare, AWL M&A 12/28/17 Automation manufacturing, welding transportation, Auro Robotics 2 investment 12/29/17 self-driving vehicles ABB, Arkad Engineering Arkad-ABB M&A 12/31/17 energy, construction and Construction
roboticsbusinessreview.com 30 TRANSACTIONS REPORT 2017 FOURTH QUARTER
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