Robotics

1. 1. Rent a robot

   → Robotics companies’ traditional business model was one-off sales of their machines to industrial customers — but now, more and more are tapping a repeat revenue model by offering “robots-as-a-service”.

   → Longer term, companies may offer their services not only to business clients, but directly to consumers — think of a cleaning agency loaning out its butler-like robots.

2. 2. Looming fragmentation

   → In theory, more robots should lead to greater efficiencies — but these may not always scale across different types of robots with separate systems and no optimisation between them.

   → Startups are now setting out to create platforms that let robots communicate and work together as well as standardising components like sensors and cloud infrastructure.

3. 3. Together, forever

   → The broad consensus is that rather than fully replacing humans, we will always need operators not only to engineer, but oversee and maintain robots in workplaces.

   → Collaborative robots — “cobots” — are designed to work alongside humans and free them from repetitive or dangerous tasks.

4. 4. Building blocks

   → Instead of becoming hardware providers, some startups are zooming in on the building blocks that determine how robots interact with their environment.

   → These range from developing advanced sensing and gripping technologies to experimenting with new materials and actuation.

Who early stage startups are up against