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The race toward commercializing robots outside of heavy industry and science is heating up.
Yesterday, a Sunnyvale, California-based startup called Collaborative Robotics, a.k.a. Cobot, announced a $100 million Series B funding round led by General Catalyst.
Other participating venture funds and VCs include Bison Ventures, Lux Capital, and Industry Ventures while existing investors Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, Mayo Clinic, and others returned. The latest round raises Cobot’s total funding to over $140 million.
The company was founded in 2022 by Brad Porter, a former Amazon VP of Robotics, who now serves as its CEO, a strong pedigree given Amazon’s various robotics acquisitions and initiatives, including everything from Kiva to Zoox. Cobot’s robots are designed to enhance productivity and safety in environments such as manufacturing, healthcare, and retail/e-commerce. The robots are intended to work alongside humans to streamline workflows and reduce operational errors.
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“This funding will help us accelerate getting more robots into the real world,” stated Porter.
Cobot’s unique, close-to-the-vest approach
Cobot’s early backers supported the vision with a $10 million seed round. By the time of its $30 million Series A in summer 2023, Cobot had early proof-of-concepts and three committed customers, leading to a fully functioning robot ready for field tests by January 30 of this year, according to a blog post by the founder published yesterday coinciding with the Series B funding announcement.
Porter explained in the post that the robot was built with a “zonal compute architecture and industrial-rated sensors.”
“We were able to move straight from simulation and our robot was autonomously sensing and moving around the environment as soon as we powered it on,” he wrote.
But with rivals such as Figure raising a whopping $675 million recently, and demoing an impressive integration with its backer OpenAI, as well as Tesla continuing to pursue its Optimus humanoid robot project, how does Cobot hope to stand apart in this fast-moving, cash-flush sector?
Porter revealed to TechCrunch last year that the company was pursuing a design for its robot that was non-humanoid, an intriguing direction when many others are taking the exact opposite approach. Yet he declined to specify much more than that, and so far, Cobot has kept renderings or photos of its first robot, dubbed 000001, close to the vest. Even the founder/CEO’s blog post contains only a wooden crate, teasing the actual design for later.
Porter further described the Cobot’s functionality in an email to VentureBeat: “Our robot is already in the field with our first customer handling the movement of carts in a global transload facility. It will be able to move boxes, totes, and carts in any commercial environment.”
A non-human approach to helping humans out in the real world
As other robotics manufacturers race to show their intelligence or human-like capabilities, Cobot aims to distinguish itself through reliability and cost-efficiency.
“Humanoid robots are expensive and complicated… We have a more trustworthy, more reliable, lower-cost robot that performs the tasks of moving boxes, totes and carts better than a humanoid would,” Porter explained in an email to VentureBeat.
But that doesn’t mean Cobot is skimping on the underlying hardware and AI brains of its robot.
“Our cobot leverages the state of the art in sensing, perception, localization and planning. We can already converse with our robot and give it tasks and commands using large language models. From a hardware standpoint, we’re using multiple of NVIDIA’s Orin systems on board to ensure we have enough computational power to take advantage of the latest progress in AI models.”
This practical approach is hoped to make Cobot a preferred choice in commercial settings over more complex robotic alternatives.
Robots-as-a-service?
Cobot has adopted a “Robots-As-A-Service” model, which aligns with modern business practices favoring operational flexibility and reduced upfront costs.
“We also engage with customers in a services-based Flywheel program where we work together to help them build their robotics transformation program,” Porter told VentureBeat.
This model allows businesses to integrate advanced robotics into their operations without the significant capital expenditures typically associated with such technology.
The funds from this round will be directed towards enhancing AI capabilities, expanding the supply chain, and accelerating customer engagements.
Cobot is actively hiring for various roles at its Santa Clara headquarters and remotely, emphasizing their commitment to innovation and growth in the robotics industry.
As businesses increasingly look to automation for efficiency and cost savings, Cobot’s innovative approach to practical and collaborative robotics positions them as a significant player in the evolving industrial landscape. With a strong team, strategic leadership, and a clear vision for the future, Cobot is set to redefine the standards of human-robot interaction.