MassRobotics resident startups have raised over $1B in seven years

By Eugene Demaitre, The robotic report | August 26, 2024

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 firms receive. MassRobotics this month introduced that resident startups have raised greater than $1 billion since its founding in 2017.

“This outstanding 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,” mentioned Tom Ryden, government director of MassRobotics. He spoke with The Robotic Report throughout the latest RoboSource showcase and networking occasion on the Enterprise Café in Cambridge, Mass.

“We’re happy with all the businesses, whether or not they’ve raised $2 million or $100 million,” Ryden mentioned. “A lot of them have moved on from our co-working house and proceed to develop. It’s not about being at MassRobotics; these firms add worth to your entire ecosystem.”

MassRobotics startups discover success throughout sectors

The startups in Massachusetts’ robotics ecosystem assist a spread of industries, notably in manufacturing, protection, and logistics. MassRobotics offers the businesses with house and mentoring, in addition to alternatives to community with academia, trade companions, and buyers.

Examples embrace Marlborough, Mass.-based American Robotics, which constructed business 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 Could 2022 Collection A spherical, for a complete of $67 million in funding so far. Boston-based Activ Surgical Inc. has raised a complete of greater than $100 million, in keeping with 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 Could 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 new graduates or reasonably skilled individuals was vicious,” he informed The Robotic Report. “Pittsburgh didn’t have the infrastructure or scope of roboticists that Boston had. Right here, there was already a thriving neighborhood, due to Amazon Robotics, iRobot, and good universities graduating individuals who have been extra conservative about job hopping.”

“MERL [Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratory] was already a company sponsor once we determined to arrange at MassRobotics in Could 2017,” Howard recalled. “It helped put up $50,000 in preliminary funding, and the sources right here meant we didn’t must spend a penny on {hardware} infrastructure so we might concentrate on what we have 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 around.

“Joyce [Sidopoulos, co-founder and chief of operations at MassRobotics] introduced over the guests, who occurred to be the pinnacle of Mitsubishi’s manufacturing facility automation staff and the CTO of its robotics enterprise unit,” Howard mentioned. “They thought it was canned, with pre-known places. We mentioned, ‘You go forward and transfer the robotic,’ after which you might see his jaw drop. That was the start of our relationship.”

Ori Dwelling will get house to collaborate and develop

Hasier Larrea, founder and CEO of Ori Inc., had an identical expertise as his firm developed and commercialized its robotic furnishings for space-constrained residences.

“MassRobotics was nice within the early phases, serving to us join with angel buyers and a few strategics,” he mentioned. “We’re in all probability the oldest resident. It’s additionally useful to be surrounded by firms at comparable phases.”

“After we launched out of MIT in 2015, the primary few years was about perfecting the expertise, ensuring it could work as we envisioned, reliably and safely, and that it could possibly be manufactured at scale,” mentioned Larrea. “We’ve now delivered about 1,500 flats so far, from New York Metropolis to Fort Price [Texas] and Los Angeles.”

Ori nonetheless has about 15 staffers at MassRobotics, the place it builds and exams 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 at all times inform younger entrepreneurs that they need to fall in love with the issues that they’re pushed to resolve, quite than begin an organization for the mistaken causes,” Larrea mentioned. “What I like about MassRobotics is that its neighborhood of individuals in shut proximity maximizes the metaphorical collisions to spark innovation.”

Greater than 85 firms are present residents at MassRobotics’ headquarters, and startups can can apply.

MassRobotics works with robotics and AI startups world wide. Supply: MassRobotics

See MassRobotics at occasions together with RoboBusiness 

MassRobotics hosts and participates in occasions for schooling 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 subsequent day, it would maintain its seventh annual RoboBoston “robotic block social gathering” for most people in Boston’s Seaport District.

At RoboBusiness 2024, which will probably be on Oct. 16 and 17 in Santa Clara, Calif., Sidopoulos will lead the Girls 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 similar to Harmonic Drive and Opteran will probably be among the many exhibitors. Jack Pearson, business director at Opteran, an RBR50 honoree, can even be among the many audio system at RoboBusiness.

MassRobotics is a strategic accomplice of WTWH Media, which produces The Robotic Report, Automated Warehouse, RoboBusiness, and the Robotics Summit & Expo.