April has seen Chinese VCs acquiring robotic ventures, buying out competitors, seeking funding to scale up production, and shoring up industry gaps.

Look at these four transactions:

1. Beijing-based Ninebot, a Segway competitor, acquired Segway;
2. Chinese venture fund Cybernaut plans to invest $200 million into Russia’s Skolkovo Center to incubate Russian inventions manufactured and marketed in China;
3. China South Rail paid $190 million to acquire SMD, a UK deep-sea robot manufacturer;
4. and Chinese drone maker DJI is forecasting global 2015 sales of $1 billion and a market value of $10 billion as it seeks funds to scale up it’s operations.

Ninebot acquires Segway

Ninebot, a Beijing-based 2012 startup, markets their device as a personal transportation robot. Segway has sued and accused Ninebot of patent infringement but all that is now water under the bridge because Ninebot acquired (for an undisclosed amount) all the intellectual property as well as the company and facilities of Segway. Although the two companies will retain their brand identities and separate locations, the transaction was an acquisition nonetheless and all Segway’s IP are now owned by Ninebot.

Bedford, NH-based Segway’s press release calls the transaction a “Strategic Combination”; Ninebot’s website calls it an acquisition. Included in Ninebot’s announcement of the acquisition was notice that Ninebot had raised $80 million from Xiaomi, Shunwei and Sequoia VCs.

Segway was launched in 2001 by Dean Kamen’s group. It struggeled to live up to all the ballyhoo from its launch when it was called the “future of transportation.” In 2009 Segway was purchased by British entrepreneur Jimi Heselden who was killed in 2010 while riding a Segway off a cliff. It was then bought by Saint Louis, MO-based Summit Strategic Investments in 2013 and it was that firm that did the deal with Ninebot. Certainly the real prize is Segway’s 400+ patents related to personal transportation devices being transferred over to Ninebot.

According to TechCrunch, “Ninebot plans to use the purchase to expand its product line. Founder and CEO Gao Lufeng said ‘After establishing the alliance, the company will apply a series of technologies into its future products, covering electric driving, mobile internet, and man-machine interaction. This combination creates great opportunities for the development of the short-distance transportation industry.'”

Commenting on the transaction, Robots Dreams blogger Lem Fugitt said, “While Segway management is positioning the take-over as positively as they can, in the long term it appears to be a major loss for U.S. technology, intellectual property, and manufacturing. The most telling comment from Segway’s president Rod Keller, as reported in the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper, was, ‘If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.’”

Cybernaut to invest $200 million into Skolkovo robotics startups

The Skolkovo Foundation outside Moscow, a large campus being constructed to focus on transferring Russian science into tangible products and to incubate Russian startups to make that happen, has signed a strategic partnership with Cybernaut Investment Group for Cybernaut to invest $200 million with Skolkovo in IT, space, telecommunication and robotic products that can be manufactured and marketed in China.

Hangzhou-based investment firm Cybernaut Investment Group will also create a new Chinese robotics center in Hangzhou to supplement Skolkovo’s efforts. Cybernaut is one of China’s largest VCs.

An in-depth review of the Skolkovo Cybernaut deal can be found at here.

China South Rail acquires SMD for $190 million

SMD, a UK based provider of underwater ROVs and ROV systems, tractors and trenchers for laying cable, sub-sea mining and oil and gas operations, was sold to Zhuzhou CSR Times Electric, a subsidiary of China South Rail (CSR), a state-owned conglomerate, for $190 million.

According to the Want China Times, the acquisition is expected to help China obtain core deep-sea robotic technology and equipment, andl will also help CSR absorb the mature industry platform and global sales network of SMD, supporting it to enter the global deep-sea market. This will complement CSR’s existing businesses in offshore wind energy, shipyard, marine engineering and drilling and help the Chinese company build an industrial chain for marine equipment.

A recent article in The Economist analyzed and charted the number of Chinese mergers and acquisition transactions in the EU.

Chinese deals in Europe as a whole rose from $2 billion in 2010 to $18 billion in 2014. Europe is attractive because it has lots of businesses going cheap — privatizations, cash-strapped firms and a weak euro. Chinese firms are following an edict to acquire advanced technology and high-quality brands from abroad that the government laid down in its five-year plan of 2011. Until recently most outbound dealmaking was by state firms buying up raw materials. Now high value-added businesses are the main target, and private capital is flowing.

SZ DJI Innovations seeks scale-up funding

SZ DJI Innovations expects their revenue to exceed $1 billion this year. That information is part of the material being shown to raise funds for the company. The Wall Street Journal reported that DJI has set a valuation as high as $10 billion and that several Silicon Valley VC firms have offered to invest. The Shenzhen company has sold hundreds of thousands of their drones to hobbyists, journalists, photographers, real estate agents and other business people worldwide. According to the WSJ, DJI has taken minimal outside capital and instead has used cash flow to fund its rapid expansion which recently was reported to include three factories and 2,800 employees.

One quote by Chris Dixon of VC Andreessen Horowitz is particularly interesting:

Companies like DJI right now have good momentum, but they’re hardware makers Next year or the year after that, you’re going to see hundreds of DJI clones. I don’t think long term that’s a good bet. Software is going to eat drones.

I disagree. I see a parallel to the robotics industry of today where a few big firms make the basic industrial robot arms but thousands of independent global consultants, distributors, integrators and engineers add value through software and add-on devices just as mapping, data mining, sensor manufacturers and aerial service providers are beginning to do today for the drone industry.

• Video describes accelerating robot deployment in China
• Sino-Russian robotics boosted as Skolkovo signs $200M deal with Chinese investment fund
• Cars in the UK, China, LA, CES and here : Robocar news update
• Foxconn begins selling noodle-making robot
• 40% annual growth forecast for Chinese robotics

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Industrial robots keep humming along, doing the dull, dirty and dangerous work of factories around the world. Newer applications are less often known but are quickly emerging. Here are two novel ones.

ECOPPIA

Ecoppia, a 2013 Israeli startup, is providing a robotic solar panel cleaning system to power companies with solar farms in the desert. Ecoppia recently installed and retrofitted five solar panel sites totaling more than 35MW. Their systems are cleaning about 5 million dusty panels every month.

“Desert regions are prime candidates for solar PV (photovoltaic) farms, aside from one glaring issue: soiling. Reports indicate this phenomenon can reduce overall energy generation by as much as 40 percent, which significantly eats into a system owner’s return on investment,” said Eran Meller, CEO of Ecoppia. “Three of the systems are located in the Arava desert, a region that suffers from frequent dust storms, with few rainy days to naturally wash the debris away. Prior to the Ecoppia installation, each system was cleaned manually, requiring tens of millions of liters of water and costly manpower resources. Ecoppia's robotic, water-free cleaning solution performs daily cleaning to remove 99 percent of dust on each panel and ensure a higher output from each plant. Supported by real-time and forecasted data from The Weather Channel, the systems can be programmed with a customized cleaning schedule for optimal results.”

INSIGHT ROBOTICS

A Hong Kong-based start-up, Insight Robotics, and an IBM SmartCamp Entrepreneur of the Year 2015 award winner, uses an automated system that combines a high-precision, pan-tilt robot with thermal imaging sensors and advanced artificial intelligence vision technology to detect and protect forests. Insight systems are recording a 100% detection rate in multiple field trials and deployments. Their systems can detect and locate wood- or vegetation-based fires as small as 6' by 3' in size within a 3 mile radius, covering up to nearly 30 sq mi of forest and living area. The system then sends real-time images and the location of the fire to control centers for analysis. Armed with real-time image feeds, precise coordinates, microclimate data and alerts sent directly to any device, frontline centers can quickly respond with efficient firefighting plans much earlier than other methods, including smoke detection.

Insight's early-warning system has been implemented in more than 10 forestry and local government agencies in five provinces and seven cities across the mainland and the company has reported a $15 million order backlog for 2015.

International Fire Fighter Magazine said, "The Insight Robotics Wildfire Detection System is the leading solution for long distance 24-hour wildfire detection. It is the first in the world to spot a heat source as small as a single 2m x 1m tree within a 5 km radius."

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Lobbying for drone special interests rose from $35 million in 2011 to more than $186 million in 2014. But that is dwarfed by investments in drone makers such as DJI and 3DR, who just raised $75M and $64M.

Originally all the lobbying was on behalf of companies providing drones to government defense, security and space agencies. Recently that has changed to lobbying on behalf of commercial uses in agriculture, construction, search and rescue, real estate, movie making, and a myriad additional areas of consumer and non-defense business uses. Amazon and Google now lobby in addition to Boeing, Northrop and Lockheed.

Many research reports forecast compounded annual growth rates (CAGR) of as much as 109% for the remainder of the decade. They foresee the drone industry splitting into maker and service providers, similar to the robotics industry of today where a few big firms make the basic industrial robot arms but thousands of independent global consultants, distributors, integrators and engineers add value through software and add-on devices. In the drone world the service provider segment is growing as fast as the maker group. Mapping, data mining, data analysis, sensor manufacturers and aerial service providers are beginning to do today for the drone industry what integrators and distributors have done for the robotics industry in the past.

Little-known facts from The Oxford Club:

• Right now, the Air Force has between 65,000 and 70,000 people working to process drone-collected data and footage.
• Cape Canaveral is now a drone base.
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection fly drones on our northern, southern and southeastern borders.

There are many drone makers, but few producing large quantities. France’s Parrot sells the AR.Drone and their new line of mini-drones (plus senseFly’s eBee); San Diego-based 3D Robotics just added their new Solo quadcopter to their line of drones and autopilots; China’s Hubsan has a line of drones including their popular mini-copters; and DJI – all sell hundreds of thousands of drones a year.

SZ DJI Innovations

Recently I reported that DJI, the Chinese dronemaker that was projecting 2015 sales at $1 billion, was seeking scale-up funding. They just got it from Accel Partners, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm who also has an impressive track record: 23 IPOs and 106 acquisitions for their 385 portfolio companies.

In a tweet by Fortune Magazines’s Dan Primacy, the $75 million DJI received was based on a valuation of $8 billion. The $75M from Accel brings DJI’s total funding to $105M.

“We spent over a year really looking at the UAV market and advanced robotics in general” says Accel partner Sameer Gandhi, who led the raise. “We met over 100 companies and the result was that we have strong convictions that there’s a huge new global market to be built here. There’s a very unique company that’s already by far the market leader: DJI.”

3D Robotics

3D Robotics, the San Diego-based open-source UAV technology company and community headed by Chris Anderson and Jordi Munoz, received a $50 million Series C round of funding in February but got another $14M as an add-on to that thereby closing their Series C funding at $64M, and a total funding to date of $99 million.

Founded in 2009, the company currently has over 275 employees and more than 100,000 customers worldwide.

3DR just launched a new quadcopter called the Solo Smartcopter with computer-assisted flight and advanced camera control.

Airware received an undisclosed investment from Intel Capital, which now joins GE Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and a host of other prominent VCs in funding this autopilot startup. The startup received $40.5 million prior to the Intel investment.

Airware also just announced the launch of its new generic autopilot, control station, and operating system for unmanned fixed-wing and multirotor aircraft. The two red Airware boxes comply with government and insurance requirements and will work with most drone builders’ devices. Airware hopes to become the standard for commercial drones by enabling customers to select drones and then mix and match hardware and software components to create unique devices for different jobs; they provide hardware, software, and cloud services that enable reliable and scalable enterprise drone operations.

With Airware focusing on their autopilot boxes and software systems, global drone makers and startups can quickly build safe and reliable drones, pop in the Airware boxes, and supply their special application-specific software. Thus drone manufacturers can tailor and focus their drones to any commercial application by connecting aircraft, sensors, payloads, and application-specific software, and not have to develop extensive piloting and navigation software themselves.

COLLISION AVOIDANCE AND TRANSPONDERS

Other companies are also developing autopilot systems. 3D Robotics offers their open source DroneKit; ArduPilot has an autopilot as does MicroPilot. A couple of defense contractors also have autopilot products and some are working on collision avoidance systems. Mitre and Aerialtronics are two such companies. But Airware’s proprietary software is more commercial-based and is already being field tested for mining surveys, precision agriculture, industrial inspections and forestry. And it is likely that they will add collision avoidance and a transponder once those systems get miniaturized and approved by the authorities.

“Airware provides the market with a full spectrum of products that bring real added value to our systems,” said Christian F. Viguie, chairman and CEO of Delta Drone, “they are building a powerful ecosystem that unites this growing market.”

General Electric announced that they will become Airware’s first large enterprise customer. Alex Tepper, managing director at GE Ventures said “We are currently developing drone solutions for our customers  drones have the ability to reduce downtime, increase safety, and provide more reliable operations for our customers. We believe that Airware is going to be a key partner in helping us deliver these solutions.”

There is much interest amongst the VC community to be invested in the emerging and exponentially growing drone industry as can be seen in these two articles:

• Consumer and B2B drone making is big business
• Commercial drones market to grow at 109% CAGR

Many research reports forecast exponential growth such as the one referenced above. Thus it is easy to foresee the drone industry splitting into maker and service provider similar to the robotics industry of today. In robotics, a few big firms make the basic industrial robot arms but thousands of independent global consultants, distributors, integrators and engineers add value through software and add-on devices. In the drone world the service provider segment is growing as fast as the maker group. Mapping, data mining, autopilot providers (with or separate from collision avoidance systems), data analysis, sensor manufacturers and aerial service companies are beginning to do today for the drone industry what integrators, distributors and consulting engineers have done for the robotics industry in the past.

Privately held Danish company Universal Robots – the successful producer of the UR line of collaborative robots – has sold to Massachusetts-based Teradyne, a provider of electronic testing equipment.

Universal Robots has had rapid growth since their startup in 2005. Their first products were sold in 2009.

• 2014 sales of $38M were 70% greater than in 2013.
• The company recently moved into a larger factory in Odense, Denmark (100 miles east of Copenhagen).
• Their new 130,000 sq ft production facility was established to enable UR to keep up with sales for the next few years.
• They have grown their network of integrator/distributors to almost 200 worldwide.
• Collaborative robotics is currently a $100 million segment of the industrial robotics market, growing at more than 50% per year.

Universal recently launched their new line of smaller UR3 robots. The UR3 can handle payloads of up to 3 kg (6.6 lbs), enabling close work in scientific, pharmaceutical, agriculture, and electronics and technology facilities for tasks such as mounting of small objects, gluing, screwing, operating tools, soldering and painting.

Teradyne, a publicly-traded supplier of test equipment with over 3,900 employees and a product line that doesn’t include anything robotic, has a market value of $4.37 billion. Teradyne does use robots in their manufacturing process and their customers are good prospects for Universal’s robots.

“Universal Robots is the technology and sales leader in the fast growing collaborative robot market and we are excited to have them join Teradyne,” said Mark Jagiela, President and CEO of Teradyne. “This acquisition complements our System and Wireless Test businesses while adding a powerful, additional growth platform to Teradyne.”

The agreement calls for $285M in cash and an additional $65M if certain performance targets are met through 2018, thereby bringing the overall sales price to $350 million.

Bottom Line

Many manufacturers are looking to shore up their market share in the robotics and automation space, and acquisitions such as this one are win-win transactions for all involved: Teradyne becomes a player in the collaborative robotics space and the inventors and entrepreneurs of Universal get a serious strategic partner and, after a few years, the ability to move on and invent the next big thing.

Money is flowing to robotics-related startup companies. Q1 saw 19 equity deals totaling $317 million, and 3 acquisitions of undetermined amounts, but money also flowed in April.

Equity deals:

• Airware, already the most heavily venture-backed drone company in Silicon Valley, received an undisclosed investment from Intel Capital. Airware has developed an autopilot that enables drone makers to quickly build their device, pop in the Airware box, add their special application-specific payload, and not have to develop extensive piloting and navigation software.
• Gamma2 Robotics closed a $3.5M Series A round with a goal of rolling out their mobile Vigilant Security Robots. Funds came from Foxlink, a Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer who said: "We believe that it represents a sea change in the security industry, where no longer are human guards burdened with the dull, dirty and dangerous jobs. They can be reallocated to more high-value roles, leaving the robots to do the previous job at a technically superior level, at a fraction of the cost. We see -- and are actively pursuing -- immediate applications around the world."

​Acquisitons:

• SMD,a UK ROV builder and underwater services provider, was sold to a Chinese conglomerate for $190M.
• Beijing-based Ninebot acquired Segway and received $80M from two VCs to do the deal.
• Intellibot, a maker of industrial-grade robotic cleaning devices, was acuired by Swiss Sealed Air for an undisclosed amount.
• ABB, one of the robotic industry's Big Four of robot manufacturers, acquired gomTec for an undisclosed price. ABB simultaneously launched their new two-armed YuMi robot which is specifically oriented to electronics assembly. Both actions signal ABB's entrance into the collaborative robotics marketplace.

Other:

• Moscow-based Skolkovo announce that they and Chinese Cybernaut Investment Group will jointly develop, finance to the tune of $200M, and market high-tech Russian innovations to be manufactured and sold in China and globally.

The Chinese Factor:

• Note the various acquisitions, investment plans and investment positions made by Chinese investors in the transactions above.
• The Economist recently reported on the growing flow of Chinese money which is encapsulated in the chart on the right which shows the recent trend, some of which is in the robotics and automation sphere.

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Corindus Vascular Robotics raised $42 million last week by offering 11 million shares at $3.80 and going public on the NYSE MKT exchange, a special market for small-cap growth companies.

Corindus, which sells the CorPath robotic angioplasty system that aid stent placement during coronary angioplasties from the safety of a radiation-protected interventional work console, had previously been trading on the over-the-counter market.

Corindus joins other robotics-related publicly-traded healthcare companies such as Accuray, Cyberdyne, Mazor Robotics, Hansen Medical, Stereotaxis, Intuitive Surgical, Titan Medical, Stryker and Johnson & Johnson.

There has been much media attention recently to the stocks of robot manufacturers. Two items of particular interest are:

• A new book Robots. The New Era by Andrea Forni that is targeted to investors. The book first describes how robotics will become a key factor in the development of the global economy over the coming years, and how the spread of robots in the next 5-10 years will lead to a radical change in how millions of people live and work. The book then features many comparison tables and 50 analysis sheets of the main US, European and Asian robotic companies and their stocks.
• An article by Michael Robinson, These Robots Can Beat the Market by 100% in which the author lists a variety of robotics-related stocks and describes the Robo-stox Global Robotics & Automation Index, which he says is “clearly rooted in the hardware that defines the conventional robotics industry… and covers just about every conceivable robotics angle.”

A special Wall Street Journal report called Meet the New Robots: Manufacturing, Unleashing Innovation appeared in its own section in today's WSJ. Lots of good facts, figures and articles to peruse.

“Robots are going to change the economic calculus for manufacturing,” says Hal Sirkin, a Chicago-based senior partner of Boston Consulting Group. “People will spend less time chasing low-cost labor.”

Manufacturing and jobs are a big part of the article as new-tech factory work has begun to look more attractive. One chart shows top and median wages in various types of factories across the country.

Marrying the new technology of smart devices into heavy manufacturing, and blurring the lines between virtual and physical robotics, one article within the section describes how a company connects their workers, machines and parts online at a factory in Germany.

A worthwhile read: http://www.wsj.com/articles/meet-the-new-generation-of-robots-for-manufacturing-1433300884

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Four diverse trends are having a big effect on the robotics industry worldwide, and the global media and financial gurus are paying attention to the process.

1.  Broad recognition of robotics

There is broad recognition within the business world of the value of robotics and that growing awareness is spreading to the media and financial community. Efficiency, reliability, low spoilage, and higher overall productivity are the real products of advanced automation. And the newer air, land and sea service robots are providing the wow factor. In the last 12 months there have been special sections about robotics in The Economist, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine and many others. And many financial institutions and consulting firms such as McKinsey and Deloitte have produced special reports about the march of advanced manufacturing and its effect on jobs, job types, job creation and employment in general.

Strategic acquisitions in the robotics arena are rampant and became most visible in 2012 when Amazon acquired Kiva Systems to help bolster their warehousing methods into the future, for $775 million. Since then, 2013, 2014 and 2015 have seen similar big-dollar acquisitions by companies and equity firms. The most recent four are indicative of the range and types of reasoning for these types of strategic acquisitions:

1. Ninebot, a Chinese maker of mobile bots similar to the Segways used by police, vacationers and security personnel, bought Segway. This settled their ongoing legal battles and enables Ninebot to acquire Segway’s intellectual property.
2. Kuka, a German robot manufacturer and one of the Big Four in the industry, last year bought Swisslog to add mobility to the Kuka product line. Kuka also bought Reis Robotics which had a factory in China. Kuka opened their own factory in Shanghai and thus now has two.
3. China South Rail (CSR) acquired UK-based SMD, a provider of underwater robotics technologies and systems. The acquisition is expected to help China obtain core deep-sea robotic technology and equipment, and will also help CSR absorb the mature industry platform and global sales network of SMD, supporting it to enter the global deep-sea market. This will complement CSR’s existing businesses in offshore wind energy, shipyard, marine engineering and drilling and help the Chinese company build an international chain for marine equipment.
4. Teradyne spent $350 million to buy up-and-coming Universal Robots, a Danish maker of one-armed safe collaborative robots and the primary competitor to American Rethink Robotics, which, although they get most of the publicity, aren’t doing as well as UR. Teradyne is an electronics manufacturer that, up until now, had no robotic presence except as a user of UR products.

And in robotics, equity funding in the first five months of 2015 has already exceeded all equity funding in 2014 .

2.  The China effect

Global industrial robot sales reached 225,000 units in 2014, 27% more than 2013. About 56,000 were sold in China, a growth of 58% over 2013. Chinese companies made 16,000 of the 56,000 robots sold domestically. To increase the number of domestically made robots, many local governments have provided investment credits and other attractive financial reasons to build in their areas, and the number of vendors has grown from fewer than 100 (of which even fewer were manufacturers; most were integrators and distributors) to almost 500. By the end of 2014, there were about 500+ companies in the sector, with 90% focusing on component manufacturing and integration. China Daily expects the number to increase to 800 by the end of this year, but also that there will be more than 10% manufacturers. Thus China is cultivating their own in-country robotics industry. They’ve set up a robotics association, the CRIA, to help mobilize and promote the new industry and so that they can poll their members and add the results to the annual tabulations made by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) which, up until 2013, had no resource to robotic activity within China.

Driven by increasing wages and political incentives, China has been forced to become the largest buyer of industrial robots – and they are putting those robots to use by the thousands. The IFR says that China will have more robots operating in its production plants by 2017 than any other country as it cranks up automation of its car and electronics factories. A race by carmakers to build plants in China along with wage inflation will push the number of industrial robots to more than 428,000 by 2017, the IFR estimates. Still, China lags far behind its more industrialised peers in terms of robot density. According to the IFR, China has just 30 robots per 10,000 workers employed in manufacturing industries, compared with 437 in South Korea, 323 in Japan, 282 in Germany and 152 in the United States. The low density rate is an indicator of continued fast growth to stay competitive and raise the density rate to at least that of the US.

3.  Advances in visual perception

Vision-enhanced robotic systems are becomming the top reason for upgrading and deploying vision-enabled robots and a core reason for the steady upward growth of the robotics industry. Amazon just brought the issue to the public and media’s attention with their recent Amazon Picking Challenge, where a variety of teams from academia used varying technologies to robotically pull various consumer items randomly placed in cubbyhole-type shelves a typical requirement of Amazon in their distribution centers. Being able to determine what and where, in 3D, makes it possible to instruct the robot to safely pick the item(s).

Visual robotic systems are quite different from old-style auto-making robots. These older systems required the part to be worked upon to be in a precise location at a specific time. The robot was blind and programmed to pick and process. Each step of the pick and process was hand programmed and quite detailed. Newer systems that use cameras and software to identify and locate parts are more flexible and enable product movement from step to step to be less rigid and precise; as a consequence, the movement system is less costly.

Artificial intelligence and various AI learning systems have been improving regarding visual perception, and many new companies (such as Universal Robotics and their Neocortex system) are now either offering vision systems that can supplement existing fixed systems or offering mobile manipulators that can find and determine how best to pick and handle all sorts of objects from plastic-wrapped toys to boxes, cases and skids of materials. Cutting the costs of expensive conveyor and movement systems and replacing them with lower-cost mobile and bin-picking robots is rapidly gaining a big following because of the possible opportunities afforded the manufacturer or warehouse operator. Startups such as Fetch Robotics, RightHand Robotics, Clearpath Robotics and more mature companies such as Adept Technologies and Kuka/Swisslog are ones to watch in this area of mobile manipulators.

4.  Human-robot collaboration

A public-private movement to figure out ways to keep labor from being offshored to lower labor cost countries started first in Europe and then followed in the US. It was focused on the small and medium-sized enterprises – factories and shops of less than 500 employees – and was called the SME movement. The concept was that if you empowered shop employees with robotic tools that improved their combined productivity, the SME would become more cost efficient and competitive and therefore not have to move offshore.

Rodney Brooks is an MIT professor emeritus who was one of the founders of iRobot, helped develop the Roomba, mentored the founders of a string of robotic startups, and created Rethink Robotics and the robots Baxter and Sawyer. He is an eloquent spokesman, speaks with a slight Australian accent, and colorfully talks about the need for human and robot collaboration. He makes similar points as the European SME movement but enhances that need by describing how, through the use of co-bots such as Baxter, SME workers become more productive, happier with their jobs, and their overall productivity becomes more cost efficient for the company.

Because the Baxter robot wasn’t up to factory standards when it was launched, the beneficiary of Brooks’ marketing efforts was the competing company, Universal Robots, a Danish startup whose one-armed robots (shown above) had all the attributes that the SME movement and Brooks were espousing. Universal just added a third robot to its product line and now has almost 200 integrators and distributors around the world, and thousands of sold robots at work in SME and larger factories. All three of their robots are identical one-armed robots except in size and carry. The UR3, UR5 and UR10 can carry up to 3, 5 and 10 kilograms of load (6.6, 11 and 22 pounds).

Combined, the SME, Brooks and Universal marketing effort helped make people aware of and understand the benefits of collaborative robotics and the business opportunities that it could bring.

Another and perhaps bigger use of co-bots has been found by automaker BMW, which already has 7,500 robots at work in their factories. BMW has been testing UR robots alongside factory workers who had been tasked with ergonomically-challenging assignments. The robots were quickly trained for those tasks and performed perfectly while freeing up the worker to do even more of what he or she was doing. The results of the tests turned out so well that a BMW spoksman who oversaw the testing, said that it was likely that BMW would soon double or even triple their number of robots by the use of these low-cost, easy-to-program, relatively portable and safe-to-work-alongside robots. Thus one can easily see why Teradyne would pay $350,000,000 for Universal Robots with that kind of endorsement and prospect for the future.

At present, collaborative robots represent 5% of the overall robot market, but have strong growth expectations for the future. ABB, with its recent acquisition of gomTec and their Roberta co-bot (see photo at right) will probably be one of the leaders. Also, Rethink Robotics has improved their systems to be speedier and more precise so that, along with their new one-armed Sawyer robot, they will become a true competitor to the market leader Universal Robots. Because it’s such a booming market, many other companies will soon be offering their products as well. Insiders suggest that collaborative lightweight robots will become the top seller in the industry in about 2 years, selling hundreds of thousands of them and with prices falling to the $10,000 price point.

• Amazon challenges robotics’ hot topic: Perception
• Danish co-bot maker Universal Robots sells for $350 million
• Consumer and B2B drone making is big business
• Competing robotic warehouse systems

• Swiss to invest almost CHF30 million in digital fabrication research over next 4 years
• Competition heats up for consumer-friendly aerial photography drones

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Fetch Robotics, which just demo’d their Fetch and Freight robot system at ICRA in May, announced receiving $20 million from SoftBank, O’Reilly AlphaTech and Shasta Ventures.

The Series A round of funding brings their total funding to date to $23 million. SoftBank was the lead investor in the round. SoftBank, a Tokyo-based phone and Internet service provider, recently invested $100M in Aldebaran, the developer of the popular Nao robot. As part of their deal, SoftBank commissioned the new Pepper robot, which is now being rolled out in Japan. Aldebaran and Pepper are SoftBank’s first and second foray into robotics; Fetch Robotics is their third.

“As businesses look for solutions to streamline operations and meet the needs of an on-demand economy, we see a tremendous opportunity for robotics to solve that problem,” says Kabir Misra, Managing Director at SoftBank Group US, Inc. “The team, the robots, and the timing all lead us to Fetch Robotics and we are happy to join them in bringing Fetch and Freight to market.”

Fetch Robotics, a San Jose startup, unveiled their mobile manipulator and mobile platform (Fetch and Freight respectively) to wide acclaim at ICRA in Seattle last month. The Fetch team has a colorful history first as a spinoff from Willow Garage called Unbounded Robotics charged with making a low-cost version of Willow Garage’s PR2 robot. They succeeded with an orange, white and grey one-armed mobile robot that they could build and sell for $35,000 compared to the PR2’s $250,000+ cost. That operation failed to get agreeable funding terms and folded but the team went on to work with FYS Systems (fetch your stuff), which was recently renamed to Fetch Robotics.

The Fetch Robotics system is composed of a mobile base (called Freight) and an advanced mobile manipulator (called Fetch).  Fetch and Freight can autonomously find and use a charging dock for continuous operations. In addition, the system includes accompanying software to support the robots and integrate with the warehouse environment. Both robots are built upon the open source robot operating system, ROS.

The robots are designed to work autonomously alongside workers, performing repetitive tasks such as warehouse delivery, pick and pack, and more.  Fetch and Freight used in tandem are capable of handling a vast range of items in a typical warehouse.

“I’m delighted to have SoftBank join the team and help us change the world of logistics and material handling,” said Melonee Wise, CEO of Fetch Robotics. “SoftBank’s expertise and worldwide resources with respect to technology, production, distribution and more will be a big help to our growing organization.”

• Fetch and SRI show that useful humanoids are on the horizon
• What’s hot in robotics? Four trends to watch
• Competing robotic warehouse systems
• Team RBO from Berlin wins Amazon Picking Challenge convincingly

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Yesterday SoftBank, FoxConn and Alibaba cemented a strong robotics initiative. Having acquired a majority stake in Aldebaran in 2012 (just after the Amazon acquisition of Kiva), SoftBank’s interest in robots has been cause for confusion. Do they want an ‘emotional’ humanoid robot or is their interest in Aldebaran a pathway towards a more practical robot?

Well, it looks like SoftBank is interested in everything robotic, as they lead the $20 million A round in logistics company Fetch Robotics and announce a joint robotics production partnership with Alibaba and FoxConn. The new SoftBank Robotics Holdings Corp. (SBRH) is valued at $590 million, with Alibaba and FoxConn paying $118 million each for 20% stakes in SBRH.

SoftBank, Alibaba and Foxconn will “build a structure to bring Pepper and other robotics businesses to global markets, and cooperate with the aim of spreading and developing the robotics industry on a worldwide scale.” said the SoftBank release. And Pepper, will finally go on sale to customers on June 20 after delays from projected availability in early 2015. Pepper will cost 198,000 yen (approx $1610) plus a monthly service fee.

Pepper has already appeared in SoftBank and Nestle stores in Japan. This next step could see Pepper in your home, although SoftBank believes that the primary initial customers will be institutional. With Japan’s aging population serving as an inspiration point, SoftBank have been exploring applications for Pepper in nursing homes, for example, conversing with patients with dementia.

Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank, said, “Since foundation, we have followed our corporate philosophy of ‘Information Revolution – Happiness for everyone.’ I am very excited that we will partner with Alibaba and Foxconn, and challenge to go global with our robotics business, including Pepper, as a first step to realize our vision. To bring more smiles to people around the world, we will aim to be the No.1 robotics company.”

Pepper is just the first step. Remember Terry Gou’s famous “1 million robots in FoxConn factories by 2014” statement? When Gou made the plan in 2011, finding 1 million factory robots would have meant doubling the number of industrial robots in the world. With the world coming out of an economic slump, Gou’s plan was too ambitious at the time. However, industrial robotics has been growing rapidly ever since, and nowhere faster than in China. At the same time, the cost of robotics systems is lowering and the range of applications for industrial and now service and logistics robots is increasing.

Terry Gou, Founder and CEO of Foxconn Technology Group, said, “Foxconn is pleased to be partnering with SoftBank and Alibaba as part of our effort to drive the advancement of robotics engineering. This is a strategic area of focus for our company as we continue to advance our capabilities in intelligent manufacturing and realize our Industry 4.0 vision.” He added, “As a leading global technology company, Foxconn is committed to investing in innovation that enables us to deliver cutting-edge solutions to our customers and that supports our goal of leveraging technology to bring greater convenience to the lives of consumers around the world.”

It’s clear that Gou realized that the world couldn’t build robots fast enough to meet his demand in 2011 and that the demand was only going to increase. FoxConn, Alibaba and SoftBank are the emerging dragons of robotics. Unicorns swept the tech world by storm last year after Aileen Lee, Cowboy Ventures, wrote a data-rich analysis of fast growth startups with mega valuations. Since then, some have looked a little further and found ‘dragons’ to be more rewarding. By some accounts a dragon company is one that returns 100% of fund value to a fund – or by some other accounts – it’s a company with a real $1B, and not just a $1B valuation.

Amazon’s acquisition of Kiva Systems for $775m in 2012 was the first shot in a campaign that is just ramping up. Google’s purchase of eight robotics and AI companies in 2013 left many people excited, but it was the forays into robotics by Facebook, Uber and other more stealthy companies that got me excited. Unicorn or Dragon – there are a lot of young companies with bucket loads of cash and a very loose understanding of what their grown up status is. If they stay true to their startup selves, their sole mission is to grow like crazy – see Paul Graham’s seminal 2012 piece “Startup = Growth” . Investing in robotics may not be a strategy so much as a byproduct.

Sadly, cementing this initiative may be the final sinking of Aldebaran, the visionary robotics company we used to know. All the other robots, including NAO, have been shelved in favor of Pepper, and SoftBank has taken over all the software development, leading to big staff cuts at Aldebaran. Rude Baguette quoted an anonymous Aldebaran executive as saying; “If we were paranoid, we’d say that FoxConn stole the hardware, SoftBank stole the software, and Aldebaran was sucked dry.”

While the globalization of robotics is good in the short term, I hope that SoftBank’s initiatives lead to more innovation in robotics and robotics businesses. Globalization will drive growth, but only up to a point. It’s what Peter Thiel describes as “1 to n”, where “n” is always finite. In his book, Zero to One, Thiel describes the importance of the new opportunity.

• Japan’s new robotics push: Funding and deregulation
• Chinese shopping for global robotics ventures
• Sino-Russian robotics boosted as Skolkovo signs $200M deal with Chinese investment fund
• China takes long view in funding robotics, innovation
• Why is Japan the first to get Dyson’s new 360 Eye?
• SoftBank invests in Fetch Robotics
• Nestlé 1st big buyer of Softbank’s Pepper robot
•  Bruno Maisonnier moves on from Aldebaran
• Foxconn and Google cooperating to make robots

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Businesses, analysts and investors often need and are willing to pay for more facts than they can gather from their sales and R&D departments: detailed comparitive reviews of the landscape of a particular industry segment in which they have an interest.

The research industry attempts to provide that data which, in the case service robotics is a fast-moving emerging and global industry, is hard to capture. Nevertheless these 11 reports recently hit the market:

AIR, LAND AND SEA ROBOTS

Autonomous Air, Land and Sea Vehicles, IDTechEx, 185 pages, $4,437
Technology, timelines, forecasts to 2035, definitions such as the spectrum of partial to total autonomy and highly automated to fully automated vehicles, and covers car, UGV, AUV, UAV, drones and mobile robots. 

China Civil Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Industry Report, ResearchInChina, 93 pages, $2,000
This report focuses on the Chinese civil UAV industry, including application areas, system structure, and policies, laws, and regulations and covers global UAV market size, Chinese UAV market size, competitive landscape, R&D, and financing for 17 domestic and foreign UAV companies, including DJI, Ehang, ZEROTECH, XAIRCRAFT, 3D Robotics, Parrot, SUNWARD, Zongshen Power, Loncin Motor, and Shandong Mining Machinery Group.

Automated Material Handling Sytems Market, Markets and Markets, 159 pages, $4,650
The automated material handling market is estimated to reach $30.9 billion by 2020, at a CAGR of 8.16% between 2015 and 2020. The report covers a whole range of products, namely, AGVs, AS/RSs, automated conveyor and sortation systems, robotic systems, automated cranes, and software & services.

Global Automated Guided Vehicle Market, Markets and Markets, 168 pages, $4,650
A vertical market within the automated guided vehicle market, analyzes the AGV value chain and is segmented based on vehicle types, industry verticals, and different applications. The AGV market is expected to reach $2.2 billion by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 9.8% between 2015 and 2020.

Commercial and Consumer Drones, iDate, 54 pages, $2,275
The report focuses on commercial and consumer drones and omits those used by defense and security agencies. It segments the technical properties (onboard engines, sensors, communications) and issues challenging development for the many uses (filming, games, augmented reality, precision farming, observation and surveillance, logistics and shipping, etc.). The report forecasts that momentum will begin in 2016.

Global UAV Market 2015-2025 by Country, Strategic Defence Intelligence, 92 pages, $2,950
The global UCAV segment (the C stands for combat) is estimated to be $2.6 billion in 2015 and forecast to grow at a CAGR of 5.3% to reach $4.4 billion by 2025. Demand for UCAVs in Europe and Asia Pacific is projected to grow at an overall CAGR of 8.9% and 6.2%, respectively, and only 1.8% in North America during that same period of time.

CONSUMER ROBOTS

Robotics: Changing the Way You Live at Home, Parks Associates, number of pages unknown, $3,200
Covers the current status of robotics, identifies leading players in consumer robotics development, discusses applications for the connected home such as floor cleaning, lawn care, education, personal assistants, entertainment and assisted living, and includes a five-year forecast for robotic floor cleaners.

AI AND VISION SYSTEMS

Artificial Intelligence for Enterprise Applications, Tractica, 99 pages, price unknown
The technologies covered include cognitive computing, deep learning, machine learning, predictive APIs, natural language processing, image recognition, and speech recognition in application areas that include online advertising services, automotive, agriculture, consumer finance, data storage, education, investment, healthcare, law, manufacturing, media, medical diagnostics, oil and gas, philanthropies, and retail.  Tractica forecasts that the market for AI systems for enterprise applications will increase from $202.5 million in 2015 to $11.1 billion by 2024, expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 56.1%.

Computer Vision Technologies and Markets, Tractica, 93 pages, price unknown
A vertical market within AI applications is computer vision. Computer vision is allowing robots to see what’s around them and make decisions based on what they perceive. New technologies such as deep learning are allowing robots to interpret these images and learn new things on the fly. The report analyzes six application areas: automotive, robotics, surveillance and security, medical imaging, sports and entertainment and consumer applications.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS

Prospect of Industrial Robot Industry in China, 2015-2020, Huidian Research, 110 pages, $2,500
This report analyzes the prospects of 31 member companies of the new CRIA, China Robot Industry Alliance, versus the many other international robot manufacturers which have integrator/distributor offices (and in some cases, factories) in China, for the fast-growing demand for massive amounts of robots of all types within China.

Global and China Industrial Robot Report, 2014-2017, ResearchInChina, 95 pages, $2,500
Similar to the previous report, this report covers the global robot manufacturers and their movement into China, as well as China's emerging in-country industry. The numbers described by this report and that one appear similar to those provided by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) in their World Robotics Industrial Robots 2014 report.

Read more

Xi Jinping, China's President, last year called for an “industrial robot revolution.” Since then there have been policies giving value added tax refunds and subsidies to companies making robots, and robot user companies can qualify for tax breaks.

The Financial Times reported that analysts are forecasting the payback period for industrial robots with a life cycle of 10 years has shortened to 1.7 years in 2015 from 11.8 years in 2008 and will likely shorten again to 1.3 years in 2016.

The prospect of being able to pay off the cost of a robot in slightly more than a year, Goldman Sachs says, has brought industrial automation to within the reach of China’s millions of small and medium-sized manufacturers, creating the conditions for a productivity surge.

These two factors (the mandate to use robots and the lower payback metrics) combined with "shrinkage in China’s working age population and the numbers of workers available for production line work" are likely to propel the continued deployment of robots in China and contribute to the huge surge in robot sales in China (as can be seen in the FT chart) and International Federation of Robotics (IFR) statistical data. Further contributing to China's labor shortage is an elevation in levels of education attainment in young working age adults causing them to seek non-factory work. 

Two recent research reports by ResearchinChina and Huidian Research attest to China's growing need for robotics across the manufacturing spectrum, from the auto industry to craft breweries. These reports, and others, forecast that by 2017, more industrial robots will be operating in China's production plants than in the EU or North America. It is expected that global industrial robot sales will grow from 200,000 in 2014 to 400,000 by 2017! 

At next week's big CIROS Show in Shanghai, on July 7th, a joint IFR-CRIA (Chinese Robotics Industry Alliance) roundtable discussion on Innovation on Robot Applications, will also provide a forum where the IFR will present their preliminary industrial robotics recap for the year 2014 which will confirm the radical growth in China's robot population.  The IFR's annual World Robotics Industrial Robots report for 2015 covering 2014 results will be released this Fall and is a worthwhile purchase.

In other news, a recent message to shareholders, Foxconn's chairman said that he plans to reduce Foxconn's pressing need to recruit, hire and train up to 30% of their 1.3 million workforce by replacing dull, dirty, ergonomically stressful, and dangerous tasks with robots within the next few years. Displaced workers will be retrained for higher-level jobs.

Read more

SoftBank announced that their little Pepper robot will be available for sale beginning August 1st at the rate of 1,000 per month after selling out their first 1,000 Peppers in one online minute in June.

Priced at $1,611 for the robot, plus $200 per month for the online service and maintenance contract, and only available in Japan at the present time, SoftBank said it can make about 1,000 units per month and that there are about 200 apps available for the device.

In addition to the apps, Pepper is upgrading its software to be able to memorize and retain data on emotional responses by a recognized person to better enable Pepper to express emotions that change according to how people interact with it. The video above shows an emotional woman coming home to Pepper, which recognizes her and her emotion, and attempts to make her happy. In another scene in the 4-minute video, Pepper interacts and plays with kids and adults in various activities.

Peppers are showing up in all sorts of places. This photo, from Xinhua, which appeared in the Want China Times, shows a colorfully dressed Pepper at a grocery promoting various store items.

SoftBank and their joint venture partners Alibaba and Foxconn, announced their new production schedule and app store. They also announced a software update to be included in the next production cycle and an August “sale” with details to follow.

Cyberdyne, the inventor of the HAL exoskeleton, is expanding their product line and Japan’s Haneda Airport is their first customer.

Three different types of robots will be put to work at the airport:

1. Industrial-grade floor cleaners will roam and clean carpets and floors along the corridors of the airport.
2. A waist-based mini-exoskeleton (shown in the top photo) for airport employees charged with moving and lifting baggage and goods. The lumbar support device reads bio-electric signals (BES) and supports the wearer’s motion by moving in accordance with the wearer’s brain signals.
3. A new mobile porter to carry and deliver passenger luggage and also airport vendor goods. Based on the mobile platform used by the floor cleaner, but supplemented with follow-me and other navigation software, the porter bots will assist passengers and airport staff with heavy luggage and will also deliver goods to airport vendors.

“The key goal of the project is to communicate Japan’s technology from Haneda Airport, a doorstep of Japan to the world. Haneda Airport is a hub for domestic flights, and it’s seeing international landing slots expanding, routes expanding and inbound passengers increasing and we have explored ways to take advantage of these characteristics and use the airport as a place where we can showcase the great things in Japan, such as its technology, industry, culture, history, and so on,” said Airport President Isao Takashiro.

If the trial program is successful, the airport and Cyberdyne plan to roll out these robots to other airports in Japan in time for the 2020 Olympics.

Demand for healthcare robotics to show “tremendous growth” in the next 5 years. Commercial drones will reach $4.8B by 2021; agricultural robots will reach $16.8B by 2021 and $73.9B by 2024. 

According to a recent Wintergreen Research report, the worldwide industrial robot market will grow at 11.5% annually and reach $48.9B by 2021. But another area of robotics is growing at a much faster rate: service robots, i.e., non-manufacturing robots for professional use, for defense, in the field, for logistics, medical, personal, entertainment and household use, are becomming a booming segment of the global robotics industry with a 20% or higher year-over-year growth rate. Three recent research reports support this thesis.

1.     Global healthcare robotics market by application (orthopedic, neurology, laparoscopy) and type (surgical, rehabilitation, telemedicine, assistive robots, orthotics, prosthetics, radio surgery, exoskeleton) – segmentation and forecast to 2020
140 pages, $4,000, Occams Business Research and Consulting

Demand for robotics in healthcare, especially surgical procedures, is increasing. Safety, better clinical outcomes, and reduced labor costs are leading to an exponential growth in demand not only for robotic-assisted surgery, but in many other segments of healthcare such as sanitation, sterilization, lab processing and materials handling. Limited to economies that are heavily invested in medical care, growth is seen to be exponential to 2020 and steady thereafter. This report is projecting “tremendous growth.”

2.     Agricultural Robots: Driverless Tractors, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Material Management, Field Crops and Forest Management, Soil Management, Dairy Management, and Animal Management for Precision Agriculture
61 pages, $3,500, Tractica

Demand for the robots involved in various agricultural processes like harvesting, pruning, weeding, pick-and-place, sorting, seeding, spraying, and materials handling has increased significantly. This demand is being driven by the global trends of population growth, increasing strain on the food supply, availability of farm workers, the challenges and complexities of farm labor, the rising overall cost of farm workers, shrinking farmlands, climate change, the growth of indoor farming, and the automation of the agriculture industry. Tractica anticipates that the overall agricultural robot market will reach $3 billion by the end of 2015 and anticipates a healthy growth rate to reach $16.8 billion by the end of 2020. Tractica also forecasts that the market will continue its momentum and reach $73.9 billion by 2024.

3.     Commercial Drones: Highways in the Sky, Commercial Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), Market Shares, Strategies, and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2015-2021
973 pages, $3,900, Radiant Insights

Next generation commercial drones will replace existing commercial airfreight delivery systems. Other uses include 3D mapping, commercial pipeline observation, border patrol, package delivery, photography, and agriculture. Drones markets offer more economical visualization and navigation. Visualization includes mapping, inspection, surveillance, and package delivery. Unmanned aircraft with cameras are able to do things that cannot be done in any other way which bodes well for sales. Unmanned aerial systems were $609 million in 2014 and are forecast to reach $4.8 billion dollars, worldwide, by 2021.
Another research report, from Frost & Sullivan entitled “The Future of Mobile Robots,” costs $15,000 and attempts to describe the various types of mobile robots and how they are being deployed by end users. Although sales figures were hidden in the press materials, they are forecasting that by 2020 there will be 26 million mobile robots at work as delivery drones, autonomous driverless cars, and at work in smart factories, warehouses and distribution centers.

Zimplistic, the Singapore and Silicon Valley startup behind the Rotimatic, a robotic home flatbread maker, sold over $5 million at their launch last year. Today, they have a backlog of $72M in orders and over 5,000 distribution partnership requests. Also today, they received $11.5M in venture funding.

The $11.5M funding came from a Southeast Asia private equity firm, NSI Ventures, and the venture arm of Robert Bosch GmbH, the global supplier of technology products and services for the auto and home. The funds will be used to scale up production to meet demand.

“Rotimatic’s cutting edge robotic technology takes user convenience in the kitchen around a conscious, healthy nutrition to new levels. We are very impressed by the Zimplistic team and happy to support the company on its way to scale up production and enter global distribution,” added Bosch’s Jan Westerhues.

The $999 Rotimatic device measures and mixes the correct ratio of ingredients to deliver one hot, fresh and puffy Roti (flatbread) per minute. It literally senses the consistency of the dough and adjusts the ingredients to deliver a consistent low-calorie, whole-wheat unleavened flatbread and can vary the product based on customer choice. Roti, also called Naan, is a staple in Indian cuisine, and has recently been making its way around the world as a healthy alternative to bread.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Robot as marketing strategy: Bosch takes a bet on Rotimatic’s consumer flatbread maker
• Could a robot make a pizza? The RoDyMan project, with Bruno Siciliano
• Manufacturing next-generation robotic manipulation
• 2015 sees mobile manipulators coming to market
• Grasping objects in a way that is suitable for manipulation
• Shadow Robot’s Dexterous Hand can do more than cook up a storm
• Teaching a robot to ‘cook’ by showing it YouTube videos of cooking shows

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Below are recaps of the June and July fundings, IPOs and acquisitions for robot and robotics related companies, followed by a thoughtful piece by Farhad Manjoo of the NY Times about why start-ups are staying private.

Fundings and IPOs:

Surgical device maker Transenterix raised $50 million from an IPO and market switch which transferred their stock from the over-the-counter market to the special small-cap MKT Exchange on the NYSE. This followed on the heels of Corindus Vascular Robotics which raised $42 million in late May by offering 11 million shares at $3.80 and then went public on the same NYSE MKT exchange.

SoftBank along with O'Reilly AlphaTech and shasta Ventures invested $20M into Fetch Robotics which recently demonstrated their Fetch and Freight robot system at ICRA in May. Also at ICRA was the Amazon picking challenge. Both Fetch and the challenge are focused on the material handling aspects of warehousing and distribution center operations and represent a hot area for capital expenditures in those applications.

Foxconn and Alibaba invested $118M each into SoftBank Robotics in a strategic move sure to have long-term ramifications. Foxconn and Alibaba's combined investment equals a 40% share of the new SoftBank Robotic Group, an entity which holds the France-based Aldebaran Robotics, the new Pepper social robot, and the Pepper SDK software group.

Orbotix, the maker of the Sphero line of toys, received $45M in equity funding from the Walt Disney Company and Mercato Partners bringing their total funding to date to $80M. Disney and Sphero have a new Star Wars game app.

Robotic flatbread maker Zimplistic got $11.5M from two venture funds: a Southeast Asia private equity firm, NSI Ventures, and the venture arm of Robert Bosch GmbH, the global supplier of technology products and services for the auto and home. Zimplistic, the Singapore and Silicon Valley startup behind the Rotimatic, the home flatbread maker, sold over $5 million at their launch last year. Today, they have a backlog of $72M in orders and over 5,000 distribution partnership requests. 

Zymergen, which integrates robots, big data, and software to unlock the potential of biology of future materials, received $44 million in funding from Data Collective, True Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and other VCs.

Teledyne invested capital to increase their ownership stake to 37% in Ocean Aero, the San Diego based unmanned naval systems startup. The amount of the transaction was undisclosed. Ocean Aero is developing autonomous, highly persistent, wind/electric unmanned vessels for surveillance, research and oil and gas monitoring. 

Acquisitions:

Vecna, a robotic mobility provider for hospitals and warehouses, acquired VGo, a provider of mobile telepresence devices, for an undisclosed amount. Similar to the strategic acquisition of Segway by Chinese Ninebot - a situation where Segway was suing Ninebot for IP infringement - and where Segway's IP passed on to Ninebot, VGo's IP, which has already undergone thorough court vetting, passes its IP to Vecna in the acquisition.

Bimba Manufacturing acquired Intek Products for an undisclosed amount. Both are American companies that manufacture actuators and other automation and motion components for robot makers and others.

Video compression and image processing semiconductor manufacturer Ambarella acquired VisLab, a lab within the University of Parma focused on perception systems, for $30M. VisLab has developed computer vision and intelligent control systems for automotive and other commercial applications including ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) and several generations of autonomous vehicle driving systems including “Porter,” the autonomous vehicle that made a 13,000 km trip from Italy to China in 2010. 

Why are startups staying private?

I've excerpted a few paragraphs from the NY Times article "As More Tech Start-Ups Stay Private, So Does the Money" by Farhad Manjoo. The whole article is worth reading.

Something strange has happened in the last couple of years: The initial public offering of stock has become déclassé. For start-up entrepreneurs and their employees across Silicon Valley, an initial public offering is no longer a main goal. Instead, many founders talk about going public as a necessary evil to be postponed as long as possible because it comes with more problems than benefits.

“If you can get $200 million from private sources, then yeah, I don’t want my company under the scrutiny of the unwashed masses who don’t understand my business,” said Danielle Morrill, the chief executive of Mattermark, a start-up that organizes and sells information about the start-up market. “That’s actually terrifying to me.”

...

Silicon Valley’s sudden distaste for the I.P.O. — rooted in part in Wall Street’s skepticism of new tech stocks — may be the single most important psychological shift underlying the current tech boom. Staying private affords start-up executives the luxury of not worrying what outsiders think and helps them avoid the quarterly earnings treadmill.

During a recent presentation for Andreessen Horowitz’s limited partners — the institutions that give money to the venture firm — Marc Andreessen, the firm’s co-founder, told the journalist Dan Primack that he had never seen a sharper divergence in how investors treat public- and private-company chief executives. “They tell the public C.E.O., ‘Give us the money back this quarter,’ and they tell the private C.E.O., ‘No problem, go for 10 years,’ ” Mr. Andreessen said.

...

At some point this tension will be resolved. “Private valuations will not forever be higher than public valuations,” said Mr. Levitan, of Maveron. “So the question is, Will private markets capitulate and go down or will public markets go up?”

If the private investors are wrong, employees, founders and a lot of hedge funds could be in for a reckoning. But if they’re right, it will be you and me wearing the frown — the public investors who missed out on the next big thing.

Read more

Developing Story: Softbank today announced that it will be taking preorders for the enterprise version of their Pepper robot, called “Pepper for Biz” starting October 1 this year. This comes one day after Japanese telco rival NTT launched a competing consumer robot called Sota. The enterprise model will be available on a three year rental contract, after which Softbank will reclaim the robot. During the rental period Softbank will provide phone and technical support. The monthly cost will be 55,000 JPY (~$440USD), for a total of 1,980,000 JPY (~$16,000USD) over the three years.

Both Softbank and NTT, with their large existing consumer bases, both seem to be vying to develop the robot-as-a-service market.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Japanese telcos vie for share in consumer robot-as-a-service business
• Forget Google and unicorns, Asian dragons are going to dominate robotics
• Foxconn and Alibaba invest in SoftBank Robotics as Pepper goes on sale in Japan
• Nestlé 1st big buyer of Softbank’s Pepper robot
• Natural language: The de-facto interface convention for social robotics
• The second wave of social robots is here

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.