Bright Machines, a US-based robotics software startup incubated by supply chain services provider Flex, emerged from stealth yesterday with $179m in series A funding.
The round was led by Eclipse Ventures, the venture capital firm founded by Lior Susan, formerly general partner of Flex’s hardware investment platform, LabIX. The other participants have not been revealed.
Bright Machines has created a software platform that utilises technologies such as artificial intelligence, computer vision and cloud computing to allow flexible-use robots to be programmed to conduct certain repetitive tasks in the manufacturing process.
The company plans to operate a subscription model that will enable customers to build their own custom-made production lines quickly and cost-effectively. It was initially known as AutoLab AI before rebranding this week, and had raised $113m of the capital as of May this year.
Amar Hanspal, the former co-CEO of design software provider AutoDesk, is chief executive of Bright Machines while the other co-CEO, Carl Bass, is on its board of directors along with Flex CEO Mike McNamara and Steve Luszo, CEO of data storage equipment provider Seagate.
Hanspal told TechCrunch: “We are putting together the people, the tech stack and funding and other resources to go really go tackle this big underserved environment by bringing more automation and software to the factory floor.
“What we are doing that is different is going from dumb, blind and costly robots to ones that are sensor rich, have computer vision, machine learning and are adaptable.”
Eclipse Ventures is also an investor in Auto, a manufacturing technology developer also spun off from Flex, which had raised $200m as of May this year.
