Supply: Rob Spiegel, Senior Editor, DesignNews
The Boston-based MassRobotics nurtures robotic firms, accelerates their development, and matches them up with enterprise capital.
At a Look
- Whereas MassRobotics is positioned in Boston, the hub helps robotics acceleration and adoption globally.
- New England Enterprise Capital Affiliation has labored intently with MassRobotics to seek out funding alternatives.
- After 18 months at MassRobotics, Realtime Robotics moved right into a 12,000-square-foot facility.
MassRobotics is an impartial robotics hub devoted to accelerating robotics innovation, commercialization, and adoption. The aim of MassRobotics is to assist create and scale the following era of profitable robotics by offering entrepreneurs and startups with the workspace, sources, programming, and connections wanted to develop, prototype, take a look at, and commercialize their merchandise and options.
By supporting the event and commercialization of cutting-edge robotics, MassRobotics accelerates robotics automation from healthcare to manufacturing. Packages, such because the MassRobotics Accelerator, assist early-stage firms with funding, tailor-made steerage, and alternatives to attach with buyers and strategic companions.
The hub was created to offer new firms the house, construction, and neighborhood to develop merchandise and techniques, and to seek out monetary and technological assist. “The mission of MassRobotics is to assist create and scale the following era of profitable robotics and AI expertise firms,” Joyce Sidopoulos, co-founder & chief of operations at MassRobotics, informed Design Information. “MassRobotics supplies entrepreneurs and startups with the workspace, sources, programming, and connections wanted to develop, prototype, take a look at, and commercialize merchandise and options.”
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Boston is a robust heart for expertise with among the strongest expertise analysis establishments close by. That’s helpful, however the hub seems past Boston. “Whereas MassRobotics is predicated in Boston, the hub helps robotics acceleration and adoption globally,” stated Sidopoulos. “The hub works with startups, academia, trade, and governments each domestically and internationally.”
Creating problem packages
As a part of the assist system for start-ups, MassRobotics has developed a variety of actions designed to deliver entrepreneurs in contact with potential prospects and sources of monetary assist. “Now we have loads of packages. We do a signature collection – occasions the place we match robots with particular industries resembling development, protection, or healthcare,” stated Sidopoulos. “We herald consultants from trade and now we have start-ups pitch on what they’re working. It’s like bringing collectively a curated group. Typically our sponsors deliver a perform, and we’ll do a problem to our entrepreneurs to handle the perform. The sponsor helps to pick which one they need to work on. Plenty of occasions, these conferences are designed to be problem. Somebody attempting to resolve a selected downside.”
MassRobotics additionally brings potential prospects to the hub to satisfy with entrepreneurs. “We even have company visits. We’ll arrange a day-long go to the place company representatives can go to robotic firms in the neighborhood,” stated Sidopoulos. “There may be additionally an enormous demand for robotics as a result of there will not be sufficient employees. That’s true with robots in logistics and warehousing. VCs are prepared to again these firms.”
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Connecting with enterprise capitalists
One of many match-making objectives of MassRobotics is to seek out enterprise capitalists to put money into the hub’s start-ups. One enterprise capital group that has labored intently with MassRobotics is the New England Enterprise Capital Affiliation (NEVCA). “The NEVCA is the commerce affiliation representing the enterprise capital neighborhood. Our actions vary from occasions to legislative advocacy,” Ari Glantz, govt director of New England Enterprise Capital Affiliation, informed Design Information. “The NEVCA is about 40% in healthcare and 40% in B2B broadly. The remaining 20% covers frontier expertise resembling arduous science robotics computation and biology.”
Enterprise capital funding is the lifeline for most of the firms that require capital to develop merchandise. “MassRobots offers a house and supportive sources to firms that begin with Concepts about what it takes to construct a robotics firm,” stated Glantz. “There are loads of obstacles. The trail from concept to industrial viability is a chasm. In software program that chasm may be overcome fairly rapidly. But for concepts that require infrastructure, instruments, and sources, the dearth of that assist prevents nice concepts from develop into actuality.”
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The robotic combine by trade:
Glantz did be aware that among the start-ups have been creating their merchandise on a shoestring. “The fantastic thing about the companies of MassRobotics and its ecosystem is that it’s versatile sufficient that you would be able to include a 3D printer the scale of a desktop pc and scale to industrial manufacturing unit grade industrial robotic arms,” stated Glantz. “Meaning the type of entrepreneur that’s variable runs the gambit.”
Apart from Silicon Valley, Boston could also be the most effective space for producing start-up entrepreneurs. “Boston has this wealth of academic establishments. We see a wholesome variety of entrepreneurs popping out of school,” stated Glantz. “We’re additionally seeing senior managers who’ve discovered the ropes of huge firms and are prepared to start out their very own. They take a look at MassRobotics as their bass layer.”
“Entry to capital is what all people struggles with. MassRobotics does an superior job of constructing it straightforward for see what’s going on there,” stated Glantz. “Should you ask MassRobotics what the largest problem is, it’s getting capital for his or her shoppers.”
Synthetic Intelligence (AI) instruments are getting deployed in new robotics. AI is turning into a notable characteristic among the many entrepreneurs at MassRobotics. “The robotics trade has been utilizing AI for years. However now we’re seeing a complete vary of recent instruments resembling opensource AI and drone autonomy,” stated Sidopoulos. “Firms are constructing their very own AI fashions. AI is utilized by virtually off of our firms, notably in imaginative and prescient techniques that detect obstacles, decide up objects, or conduct bin choosing.”
AI in robotics can embody autonomous robots for warehouses or supply, machine studying on the manufacturing unit ground, and inspection techniques for high quality management. “Machine studying for manufacturing is designed to take a look at issues coming off manufacturing unit traces, or a gripper that positions one thing in a sure means,” stated Sidopoulos. “We taught a robotic how one can tie a shoe.”
Realtime Robotics: a case examine of success
One of many MassRobotics success tales is Realtime Robotics. The corporate was based with the aim of reworking how robots and autonomous autos transfer. The corporate develops cutting-edge software program and {hardware} for collision-free movement planning, enabling robots to function effectively in dynamic environments throughout a number of industries. Whereas Realtime Robotics is headquartered in Boston, the corporate now has workplaces in Europe and Asia.
Realtime Robotics signed up with MassRobotics shortly after the hub launched. “Again in Might 2017, simply earlier than I geared as much as discover a spot in Boston to settle our three-person crew, I stumbled onto an article in regards to the very current formation of MassRobotics (MR). I instantly known as the quantity and caught up with Joyce [Sidopoulos],” Peter Howard, co-founder and CEO of Realtime Robotics informed Design Information. “She took me for a video tour of the house. The town had given them a substantial break on robots, the lab, and maker house. The fee to us was extremely low. So we received began there.”
The instruments Realtime wanted to launch had been principally out there at MassRobotics. “We had $50k of funding to get began, and that funding would have gone straight out the window if we’d had to purchase robots, desks, and instruments,” stated Howard. “All we wanted to get to work had been our computer systems. That $50k lasted about 5 months, lengthy sufficient to land our first contracts with Amazon and Samsung and lift a $2M seed spherical anchored by Toyota.”
The following large break for Realtime got here by means of one of many MassRobotics occasions. “On the finish of our first 12 months, we had simply constructed an incredible demonstration of our expertise when Mitsubishi Electrical got here by means of on a visibility tour,” stated Howard. “They had been instantly excited by what they noticed. Very shortly thereafter, they contracted with us to port our expertise to their robotics product line. They joined our Sequence A spherical as an anchor investor and have become an vital MR sponsor group.”
The success despatched Realtime Robotics off to their very own facility. “We ‘graduated’ from MR after about 18 months and moved into 12,000-square-feet of house not distant,” stated Howard. “We’ve continued to keep up a low-profile ‘membership’ at MR, and use their services for off-site brainstorming, for demonstrations, and simply to remain in contact with the colourful neighborhood it has develop into.”
Working with a variety of entrepreneurs
MassRobotics works with entrepreneurs that vary from college-age engineers to executives from tech firms. “Now we have entrepreneurs proper out of college. They arrive to construct robots even earlier than they’ve a buyer. We additionally get entrepreneurs from giant firms,” Sidopoulos. “We get professors who’re commercializing their analysis. They’ve cool expertise. Healthcare grew to become an enormous marketplace for us due to COVID.”
Whereas MassRobotics attracts from Boston’s mental and expertise communities, not the entire hubs entrepreneurs are native. “A lot of our firms will not be from Massachusetts. Fifty p.c will not be from Massachusetts, 25% will not be from the US,” stated Sidopoulos. “But there’s a bonus of being from the melting pot of Boston. Our tradition is much like Europe with a excessive density of teachers. Now we have loads of expertise. Plenty of industries come to Boston for our pure useful resource, the mind.”
MassRobotics receives its assist from trade. “We’re impartial, funded by trade by means of an annual sponsorship payment. Our supporters get entry to our start-ups. They run challenges. They really feel tied into the ecosystem,” stated Sidopoulos. ”We goal some industries. We glance for individuals who can add to our ecosystem. After we began, it was simply a few us sitting round desk with zero funding.”
