Amazon, COVID, supply chain difficulties, labour shortages Pick your poison. There are several and expanding reasons to be enthusiastic about logistics robotics. RightHand Robotics had already generated a lot of excitement before the epidemic, having raised a significant amount of money from investors, including GV, Menlo, and Playground Global through a number of rounds.
And, unlike many newbies, the Boston-based firm’s select and placement algorithms have already logged a significant number of real-world hours. The RightPick 3, which counts Japanese wholesaler Paltac and European drugstore apo.com Group among its international clients, is the most current of the lot.The startup announced a $66 million Series C funding round last week. The current round, led by Safar Partners, Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P., and the SoftBank Vision Fund, brings the company’s total funding to a little over $120 million. Zebra Technologies, Epson, Global Brain F-Prime Capital, Matrix Partners, and Future Shape (Tony Fadell’s business) are also participating in the round. Zebra is a unique partner in this situation. In addition to its own robotic inventory, the corporation paid $290 million for warehouse robotics startup Fetch in the middle of last year.
Tony Palcheck, managing director of Zebra Ventures, says, “Zebra Technologies has been an active investor and solution supplier to help businesses around the world digitise and automate their supply chains and augment front-line personnel.” “Fulfilling orders with greater speed, accuracy, safety, and cost savings is critical for customers in the consumer packaged goods, retail, logistics, and other industries, and RightHand Robotics helps them accomplish those efficiencies.”
The money will be used for the normal things: hiring, expanding the office space, and expanding abroad.
