RobCo doubles its valuation in nine months and exceeds one billion dollars

The Munich-based manufacturer of industrial robotic arms has completed a $40 million funding round – mainly comprising shares sold by employees – led by Sequoia and Lightspeed, to accelerate its growth in the United States.

RobCo, a German industrial automation start-up, announced on Monday a $40 million deal that values it at more than $1 billion, twice as much as in January. Most of the shares were sold by current and former employees to a group of investors including Sequoia and Lightspeed. The money is to be used to strengthen the U.S. presence: Founding CEO Roman Hölzl has set up shop in San Francisco, and the company already operates a factory in Austin and serves customers in a dozen states.

The catalog includes more than a dozen robots for logistics and production, mostly arms: from the simplest, a single-joint arm that holds an inspection camera above a conveyor, to the XL model capable of lifting about 40 kg for metalworking. The flagship product, Alfie, is a two-armed mobile robot that can, for example, hold a car part with one hand and paint it with the other.

Adapt without reprogramming

To avoid software updates with every change on the line, RobCo relies on RobVision: from a simple photo of the part, the software generates synthetic variants and trains a dedicated model, which is then installed on Alfie. Customers assemble the robot's gestures without coding thanks to RobFlow, while RobCo Studio helps to configure the hardware and plan maintenance.