Collaborative Robotics Raises $100M

Collaborative Robotics, a company developing AI-enabled collaborative robots (cobots) for industrial applications, has raised $100 million in its latest funding round.

General Catalyst led the series B funding round with participation from Bison Ventures, Industry Ventures and Lux Capital. 

Existing investors including Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures and Mayo Clinic also contributed, bringing the company’s total funding to date to over $140 million in less than two years. 

Founded in 2022 by Amazon’s former vice president of robotics Brad Porter, the company is staffed by AI engineers and robotics experts from Amazon, Apple, Meta, Google, Microsoft, NASA and Waymo. 

The company has said its cobots could “revolutionize” industrial automation. Designed to work alongside humans, the robots are intended to alleviate pressures on the existing workforce and provide safer and more efficient operations, leveraging AI to give them greater environmental awareness and improve human-robot interactions. 

Collaborative Robotics said it would use the latest funding to look to increase hiring, accelerate the uptake of its robotic pipeline and bring its technology into commercial deployment with the latest funding. 

"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," said Porter. "We see a virtuous cycle where more robots in the field lead to improved AI and a more cost-effective supply chain. This funding will help us accelerate getting more robots into the real world."

Related:Schneider Electric Collaborative Robots Debut at MODEX 2024

The funding announcement comes as industrial robots see a rise in investor interest, with stakeholders turning their attention to the rise of AI and automation as key factors in changing industrial landscapes. 

"In our view, Brad and Cobot are spearheading the future of human-robot interaction,” said Paul Kwan, General Catalyst’s managing director. “Their pragmatic approach to developing and deploying capable, versatile and seamless-to-use robots we think will help accelerate the transformation of industrial automation.”

"We're in the early stages of a massive transition as AI drives productivity in the digital and physical world," said Alfred Lin, partner at Sequoia Capital. "Brad and his team bring a unique combination of hardware, software and AI expertise, combined with the experience operating and driving change in some of the biggest logistics networks in the world."