US-based warehouse robotics technology developer Dexterity emerged from stealth on Tuesday with $56.2m in equity and debt financing from investors including Presidio Ventures, a corporate venturing subsidiary of diversified conglomerate Sumitomo.
Financial services firm Pacific West Bank, Liquid 2 Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, B37 Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Obvious Ventures, Stanford-StartX Fund and Blackhorn Ventures are also among the investors.
The company did not reveal the ratio of equity and debt but said the total included a recently completed series A round.
Founded in 2017, Dexterity designs and builds robots tailor-made for specific customers to automate elements of goods picking and packing in warehouses.
The robots progressively learn to ‘feel’ specific items, leveraging advanced haptic controls that emulate human coordination, enabling them to execute a wider range of tasks, in collaboration with each other.
Dexterity’s client base includes industrial manufacturing group Kawasaki Heavy Industries. It claims its systems are currently processing 200 different types of items at an estimated accuracy of 99.5%.
Samir Menon, founder and chief executive of Dexterity, said: “While robots are the backbone of manufacturing, they have historically lacked the ability to adapt and operate in dynamic environments like warehouses.
“Dexterity’s intelligent robots constantly adapt to warehouse operations and do the tedious and strenuous tasks, which maximises productivity by enabling humans to focus on meaningful work.”
The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.