Robotic Exosuit Company, Verve Motion, Raises $20M

Verve Motion, a Harvard University spinout creating a robotic “exosuit” to provide physical support for workers in industrial environments, has closed its series B funding round with $20 million.

The round was led by Safar Partners with participation from Cybernetix Ventures, Construct Capital, Pillar VC, OUP and angel investors including Okta co-founder Frederic Kerrest.

The funds bring Verve’s total financing to date to more than $40 million, which the company said will be used to aid its global expansion and support uptake of its SafeLift exosuit.

According to Verve, the series B round will play a “pivotal role” in helping scale manufacturing of the suit, which Verve said is the “world's first soft exosuit” offering tailored, adaptive assistance customized for each worker and task.

The design leverages real-time motion sensors that identify potentially harmful behaviors such as over-turning or twisting, offering robotic assistance when these motions are detected.

The team said they worked alongside athletic apparel designers to make it as wearable and comfortable as possible, fitting on a user’s back like a backpack. 

Verve said the SafeLift alleviates about 40% of the strain on a worker's back during a typical workday by assisting in parallel with their underlying muscles. 

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"The era of transformation in workplace safety and productivity is here," said Ignacio Galiana, Verve Motion’s CEO. "Our mission is to power the human workplace by spearheading the next generation of wearable technology for industrial workers. Our SafeLift solution significantly diminishes the risk of back injury and fatigue, while enhancing facility productivity and fostering employee retention. 

“This additional funding will drive the expansion of our solution and enable us to scale operations to meet the growing demand for our technology, ensuring it is accessible to the workers who need it most."

Verve said its exosuits are currently deployed in a range of industries, including grocery, package distribution, third-party logistics, retail, supply chain distribution and manufacturing.

The design for SafeLift began at the Biodesign Lab at Harvard's John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where researchers created a soft exosuit to mitigate injury risks for military personnel. 

The work has been supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.