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Agile robot
One of my favorite robots of the past few years is named Cassie. No more than a pair of bipedal robot legs, the robot is designed as a powerful R&D tool for ground mobility applications. It’s a great robot, and it’s a great illustration of a company developing fundamental technology that’s ready for useful iterations.
That approach has now worked Agile robot, the maker of Cassie and more recently a commercial robot designed to work alongside humans in logistics and warehouse environments, an impressive $150 million Series B it will use to perform Human-robot cooperation in logistics warehouses. Humanoid robots are capable of performing a number of potential warehouse tasks previously performed by humans and can be flexibly deployed in a variety of environments.
Damion Shelton, CEO of Agility Robotics, explains: “Unprecedented consumer and business demand has created extraordinary demand for robots to assist people in the workplace. “With this investment, Agility can increase its supply of robots to fill roles where there is an unmet need.”
Notably, this round featured Amazon as part of the company recently announced $1 billion Industrial Innovation Fund. Agility is one of the first five recipients of the fund, a significant investment for a seven-year-old company in rural Oregon started by two Robotics PhDs from Carnegie Mellon.
“The purpose of the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund is to support emerging technologies through direct investment, designed to drive innovation and solve the world’s toughest problems through activities customer fulfillment, logistics, and supply chain solutions,” said Katherine Chen, Amazon Industrial Director, Innovation Fund. “Agility’s approach to designing robots for a mixed workforce is truly unique and can have significant ripple effects across many industries, and we hope others follow suit. accelerate innovation in this way.”
Agility has rapidly evolved to focus on real commercial robots that work collaboratively and side by side with humans in a familiar and non-hazardous way. Their robots can easily walk, climb stairs, navigate unstructured environments, carry packages, load goods, and work indoors or out, all of which are elusive skills. in the development of robots not so long ago. The company’s robots are now deployed in the factories and warehouses of leading US logistics companies, as well as Ford Motor Co. and some of the country’s most elite research facilities, including Ohio and Michigan.
The capital increase underscores the continued reliance on automation to drive efficiency, even as the economy evolves with uncertainty. Faced with a tight labor market and supply chain troubles, logistics operations increasingly rely on automation to fill key gaps, shifting dependence away from human labor.
Agility’s most advanced robot will be deployed at customer sites later this year. Series B is led by DCVC and Playground Global.
