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Quite a few attendees met MassRobotics startups and companions at RoboSource earlier this month. Credit score: Eugene Demaitre
BOSTON — One measure of success for a robotics cluster is how a lot funding its member corporations get hold of. MassRobotics this month introduced that resident startups have raised greater than $1 billion since its founding in 2017.
“This exceptional achievement underscores the very important position MassRobotics performs in accelerating robotics innovation, commercialization, and adoption of superior applied sciences,” acknowledged the group.
“Greater than 290 buyers have backed about 82 resident startups,” stated Tom Ryden, government director of MassRobotics. He spoke with The Robotic Report throughout the current RoboSource showcase and networking occasion on the Enterprise Café in Cambridge, Mass.
“We’re pleased with all the businesses, whether or not they’ve raised $2 million or $100 million,” Ryden stated. “Lots of them have moved on from our co-working area and proceed to develop. It’s not about being at MassRobotics; these corporations add worth to all the ecosystem.”
MassRobotics startups discover success throughout sectors
The startups in Massachusetts’ robotics ecosystem help a spread of industries, notably in manufacturing, protection, and logistics. MassRobotics offers the businesses with area and mentoring, in addition to alternatives to community with academia, trade companions, and buyers.
Examples embrace Marlborough, Mass.-based American Robotics, which constructed industrial drones and was acquired by Ondas Holdings for $70.6 million in 2021. Watertown, Mass.-based Tutor Intelligence has raised $4.2 million pre-seed to engineer synthetic intelligence and collaborative robots for packaging.
SparkCharge, which has developed techniques for electrical and autonomous car charging, raised $23 million in a Might 2022 Collection A spherical, for a complete of $67 million in funding up to now. Boston-based Activ Surgical Inc. has raised a complete of greater than $100 million, in response to MassRobotics.
MassRobotics startups aren’t restricted to New England. Shanghai-based XYZ Robotics has raised $103 million, together with a $20 million Collection A+ spherical, for vision-guided selecting techniques.
An trade breakdown of the $1 billion invested in MassRobotics startups. Supply: MassRobotics
Realtime Robotics will get assist ramping up
In Might 2024, Realtime Robotics acquired Collection B funding led by Mitsubishi Electrical Corp., bringing its whole to $71.5 million. Boston-based Realtime is creating runtime applied sciences to optimize collision-free movement planning for a number of robotic arms in a single workcell.
MassRobotics has helped the corporate from the start, famous Peter Howard, co-founder, president, and CEO of Realtime Robotics. He had researched a wide range of places earlier than selecting Boston.
“It was obvious to us in 2017 that Silicon Valley was busy with autonomous automobiles, and competitors for brand spanking new graduates or reasonably skilled individuals was vicious,” he advised The Robotic Report. “Pittsburgh didn’t have the infrastructure or scope of roboticists that Boston had. Right here, there was already a thriving group, because of Amazon Robotics, iRobot, and good universities graduating individuals who had been extra conservative about job hopping.”
“MERL [Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratory] was already a company sponsor once we determined to arrange at MassRobotics in Might 2017,” Howard recalled. “It helped put up $50,000 in preliminary funding, and the assets right here meant we didn’t should spend a penny on {hardware} infrastructure so we may concentrate on what we had been making an attempt to create.”
The next 12 months, Realtime Robotics had simply arrange an illustration workcell with two robots selecting and inserting into two bins when Mitsubishi came visiting.
“Joyce [Sidopoulos, co-founder and chief of operations at MassRobotics] introduced over the guests, who occurred to be the pinnacle of Mitsubishi’s manufacturing unit automation staff and the CTO of its robotics enterprise unit,” Howard stated. “They thought it was canned, with pre-known places. We stated, ‘You go forward and transfer the robotic,’ after which you might see his jaw drop. That was the start of our relationship.”
Ori Residing will get area to collaborate and develop
Hasier Larrea, founder and CEO of Ori Inc., had the same expertise as his firm developed and commercialized its robotic furnishings for space-constrained residences.
“MassRobotics was nice within the early levels, serving to us join with angel buyers and a few strategics,” he stated. “We’re most likely the oldest resident. It’s additionally useful to be surrounded by corporations at comparable levels.”
“After we launched out of MIT in 2015, the primary few years was about perfecting the expertise, ensuring it might work as we envisioned, reliably and safely, and that it might be manufactured at scale,” stated Larrea. “We’ve now delivered about 1,500 residences up to now, from New York Metropolis to Fort Price [Texas] and Los Angeles.”
Ori nonetheless has about 15 staffers at MassRobotics, the place it builds and assessments all its merchandise and manages its provide chain. The corporate has raised greater than $50 million and opened a business-development workplace in Brooklyn, N.Y.
“I all the time inform younger entrepreneurs that they need to fall in love with the issues that they’re pushed to resolve, somewhat than begin an organization for the fallacious causes,” Larrea stated. “What I like about MassRobotics is that its group of individuals in shut proximity maximizes the metaphorical collisions to spark innovation.”
Greater than 85 corporations are present residents at MassRobotics’ headquarters, and startups can can apply.
MassRobotics works with robotics and AI startups all over the world. Supply: MassRobotics
See MassRobotics at occasions together with RoboBusiness
MassRobotics hosts and participates in occasions for training and coaching, investing, and connecting engineers with trade. Its actions embrace the Healthcare Robotics Startup Catalyst and the MassRobotics Accelerator.
On Sept. 27, the group is internet hosting a Robotics and AI Technical Profession Honest. The following day, it is going to maintain its seventh annual RoboBoston “robotic block social gathering” for most people in Boston’s Seaport District.
At RoboBusiness 2024, which can be on Oct. 16 and 17 in Santa Clara, Calif., Sidopoulos will lead the Ladies in Robotics Lunch and Half 1 of the Robotics Startup Bootcamp. Marita McGinn, director of the MassRobotics Accelerator program, will lead Half 2 of the Robotics Startup Bootcamp.
Members of MassRobotics reminiscent of Harmonic Drive and Opteran can be among the many exhibitors. Jack Pearson, industrial director at Opteran, an RBR50 honoree, may even be among the many audio system at RoboBusiness.
MassRobotics is a strategic associate of WTWH Media, which produces The Robotic Report, Automated Warehouse, RoboBusiness, and the Robotics Summit & Expo.
