In 2023, more than 550,000 new robots were installed in factories, according to the International Federation of Robotics. But the vast majority were at large-scale plants, with an estimated 10% of them deployed at small- and medium-sized businesses. It’s these manufacturers that are the target for RobCo, a start-up designing low-cost and modular robots that suit smaller factories. To date, the Munich-based company has deployed a thousand modules at more than 100 customers, most of them in Europe. Revenue is now approaching $10 million.
The company, founded in 2020 by Forbes 30 Under 30 alum Roman Hölzl, has just raised $43 million led by Lightspeed Venture Partners to help RobCo grow and to develop AI that could make the robots smarter, allowing them to plan out the most efficient way to work, for example, or learn their new environment with simple commands. “We use AI to determine a given task,” Hölzl, the company’s CEO, told Forbes. “You upload your factory, and we determine the ideal motion with AI.” The funding brings RobCo’s total investment to $61 million at a valuation of roughly $200 million.
RobCo’s bots are different than the complex, often custom-built systems used by larger factories, which are often too expensive for smaller manufacturers. These firms also require more flexibility so that their robots can shift from one task to another without buying specialized robots for every task. That’s why Robco offers robotic modules that can handle common factory tasks like loading material into machines, offloading finished parts and organizing pallets. Such jobs may sound simple, but the robots need to be able to determine such things as whether a machine is on or off or whether a finished part has turned sideways in order to work accurately. The complexity is in the software. “It’s a Lego model enabled by a software platform in the background that puts in the magic to make it happen,” Hölzl said.
Hölzl, who is now 30, started the company based on research he was doing at the Technical University of Munich, one of Germany’s leading robotics research centers. With cofounders Paul Maroldt and Constantin Dressel, who were also researchers there, he dropped out of the Ph.D. program to start the firm in 2020. Earlier in his career, Hölzl was a competitive skier and worked briefly in business development at TeslaTSLA -0.1% and product development at robotics firm Kuka.
Manufacturers face labour shortages that they’ve been counting on automation to solve. To draw these customers—many of which are suppliers to major manufacturers like BMW or BoeingBA -4.3%BA -4.3%—RobCo offers its robots as a service, at prices ranging from $2,000 to $4,000 per month, less than the cost of a machine operator’s monthly shift. Hölzl said that some 70% of RobCo’s customers are deploying robots for the first time.
“They are attacking the big wave of small- and medium-sized businesses where there is almost no automation,” said Alex Schmitt, a Lightspeed partner based in Berlin, who first met Hölzl years before making the investment. “You can finally untap that market.”
