Deeptech

Q3 202412.08.2024

Robotics (Q3 2024)

Picture of Éanna Kelly

Éanna Kelly

at Sifted

Robots are improving, thanks to AI “brains", more elaborate sensors and better gripping tools. They’re moving boxes around warehouses, picking fruit in greenhouses, stacking bricks on building sites and performing keyhole surgeries in operating theatres. They may work a little slower than people — and good luck getting them to hold anything uneven or slippery — but they never sleep.

AI, in particular, is pushing the industry on: the progress of deep learning models in recent years has advanced software that allows machines to learn by themselves, and be both adaptive and reactive to unexpected challenges.

Investors are not exactly raging against the machines, either. Robot surgeons, for one, are popular: Italy’s Medical Microinstruments raised $110m in February, while the UK’s CMR Surgical picked up £165m and Switzerland’s DistalMotion scooped $150m last year.

Humanlike robots are further off, though Oslo-based 1X Robotics raised €91m in January for its slim and sleek concept, which promises to help with household chores. There’s a lot of hard technology to be solved first — and the price tag for these two-legged robots will sting.

Bots will have the biggest impact in industries with black spots for productivity gains and dwindling stocks of human capital (food production is an obvious one). But for now, they’ll mainly be taking jobs in manufacturing, logistics and warehousing: a robot can learn how to trundle around a factory floor sooner than it can figure out how to fold clothes or make your dinner.

20 most-promising robotics startups to watch

Sifted score
7.85
-
Nomagic
Automated AI warehouse solutions for e-commerce and fashion.
Strong investor(s)
Serial founder(s)
Hiring
- Year founded
  2017
- HQ
  Warsaw, Poland
- Latest round
  Series A
  €20m / Mar 2024
- Total funding
  €27.8m
View company profile
Sifted score
7.15
-
Gideon
Autonomous robots streamline material handling.
Strong investor(s)
Hiring
- Year founded
  2017
- HQ
  Zagreb, Croatia
- Latest round
  Series A
  €28.2m / Jun 2021
- Total funding
  €32.7m
View company profile
Sifted score
6.77
-
coboworx
Strong investor(s)
Hiring
- Year founded
  2019
- HQ
  Osann-Monzel, Germany
- Latest round
  Early VC
  €11.4m / Jun 2024
- Total funding
  €15.9m
View company profile
Sifted score
6.6
-
Saga Robotics
Autonomous robotic platform for crop protection.
- Year founded
  2016
- HQ
  Oslo, Norway
- Latest round
  Early VC
  €13.2m / Jan 2024
- Total funding
  €37.2m
View company profile
Sifted score
6.52
-
Sereact
AI-powered robotics solution for warehouses.
Strong investor(s)
Hiring
- Year founded
  2021
- HQ
  Stuttgart, Germany
- Latest round
  Seed
  €4.5m / Aug 2023
- Total funding
  €4.5m
View company profile

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