As companies around the world try to automate production lines and supply chains, the companies that make the robots are attracting a lot of interest from investors. The latest to be funded is Flexiv, which closed a Series B round north of $ 100 million from investors including Chinese on-demand services giant Meituan, ProWellTech learned.
Other major investors in the strategic round are Chinese venture capital firm Meta Capital (元 知 资本), leading Chinese agricultural firm New Hope Group, Longwood private equity firm, Jack Ma's YF Capital, leading Chinese venture capital firms Gaorong Capital and GSR Ventures, as well as Plug and Play initiatives in China and the United States. The new round has raised the startup's capital raised so far to over $ 120 million.
The company operates in several major Chinese cities and California with two-thirds of staff stationed in China, a common strategy for AI startups led by Chinese founders who have worked or studied in the United States
In 2016, Wang Shiquan, an alumus at Stanford's Biomimetics and Dexterous Manipulation Lab, founded Flexiv with the aim of building adaptive robots for the manufacturing industry. With the new capital, the startup plans to roll out its AI-driven generic robots in other areas such as services, agriculture, logistics and medical care.
Through Meituan's Strategic investment, for example, Flexiv could deploy its solutions to the investor's core food delivery business, which involves repetitive, high-volume tasks and is ready for automation.
Meanwhile, there is still ample room for automation in traditional manufacturing, Wang said in an interview with ProWellTech. Consumer electronics especially require delicate and high-precision manufacturing processes, which means that the production line often has to be renewed for a new product. Flexiv's robots, equipped with force feedback and machine vision systems, can adapt to new circumstances and potentially save factory leaders time and money in creating new machinery, Wang said.
The company's flexible robots are what sets it apart from many existing players, the founder added.
"Conventional robotic arms can perform tasks safely when there are no barriers around, but are less able to operate in complicated environments ... Many seemingly simple tasks like washing dishes actually require a lot of AI-based recognition and decision-making ".
The company started series production in the second half of this year and has produced around 100 robots so far. It plans to monetize by selling robots, licensed software, and providing after-sales services. The challenge is therefore to find partners and customers in a wide range of industries to trust in its nascent technologies.
China remains Flexiv's largest market while North America is a key market in its expansion plan. "Each country has its own competitive advantage in robotics," Wang suggested. "China's advantage is in manufacturing, supply chains and labor costs."
"In the area of traditional and adaptive robotics, the gap between different countries is certainly narrowing," said the founder.