Silicon Valley based industrial automation and robotics firm Fetch Robotics has raised $46 million in Series C funding. The new venture capital takes its total funding to $94 million to date. The money will go on international expansion, and new development, the company said.
The latest Series C round, to stimulate the firm’s mobile robots and cloud platform, was led by Fort Ross Ventures, with additional participation from CEAS Investments, Redwood Technologies, TransLink Capital and Zebra Ventures.
Fetch Robotics said warehouse and manufacturing operators are struggling to find solutions to meet their demanding supply-chain workloads – “to produce, transport, package, ship, deliver and adapt at a pace never before seen”, it said.
Melonee Wise, chief executive at Fetch Robotics, said: “The competitive pressures for excellence in logistics have never been greater. Our autonomous mobile robots and cloud platform enables our customers to meet their customers’ demands while meeting their own financial objectives.”
Anurag Chandra, venture partner at Fort Ross Ventures, said: “Fetch Robotics is a natural addition to our portfolio. Its cloud-first approach enables on-demand automation, which we believe will transform logistics, manufacturing, retail and other industries in the US and internationally.”
John Santagate, research director at IDC, said: “On top of the physical element of modern robotics, development of cloud-based applications to enable robotics has greatly enhanced the ability to rapidly and efficiently deploy robotics at scale. The cloud robotics approach at Fetch is something that is enabling warehouses to rapidly realise the benefits of robotics.”
Fetch Robotics quoted Michigan-based Universal Logistics Holdings in its announcement. Universal Logistics Holdings has deployed 10 robots from Fetch Robotics, working with 40 carts, to automate several processes in its logistics facility in Smyrna, in Tennessee, which serves the nearby Nissan Motors plant.
Jeff Rogers, chief executive at Universal, said: “We face chronic laboUr shortages, at times in excess of 10 per cent of our required staff, which puts significant pressure on everyone from the workers on the floor to senior management. The Fetch Robotics system provides an answer to our problem.
“Because the system installs so quickly – we had it fully operational in less than a week – we’re able to boost output and manage our costs. And our workers like it because the robots take on the less interesting, more laborious tasks. With Fetch, our employees can focus on the revenue-generating tasks that are more fulfilling and more valuable.”
