Freight News:
Plus One Robotics raises $50M for AI-powered parcel handling
Plus One Robotics announced Tuesday that it has raised $50 million in series C funding.
With the most recent funding round, the AI-powered parcel handling robotics platform’s total funding to date is nearly $100 million.
Company officials said they will use the additional capital to increase capacity and rapidly scale deployment of its AI software-powered robots, as well as expand sales and marketing efforts in North America and internationally.
“The growth of e-commerce has placed tremendous pressure on shipping responsiveness and scalability that has significantly exacerbated labor and capacity issues,” Erik Nieves, CEO and co-founder of Plus One Robotics, said in a news release.
The company’s technology aims to alleviate manual labor shortages through robotic solutions, streamlining the parcel picking and depalletizing processes.
The infusion of capital also builds on Plus One Robotics’ existing relationships with customers in the parcel post, logistics and general merchandise industries, serving customers that include FedEx and MSC Industrial.
Founded in 2016 by computer vision and robotics industry experts, Plus One Robotics is headquartered in San Antonio with offices in the Netherlands, Pittsburgh and Boulder, Colorado.
Shipping growth is expected to increase by as much as 25% over the next five years and could result in warehouses and distribution centers not having the workforce to keep up, according to Plus One Robotics.
“With the ongoing labor shortages, I believe we’ll see an increase in the adoption of Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) to lower capital expenditures and deploy automation on a subscription basis,” Nieves said.
The series C round was led by Scale Venture Partners, with participation from Top Tier Capital Partners, Tyche Partners, ROBO Global Ventures, Translink, McRock and Pritzker Group Venture Capital, alongside existing investors.
Rory O’Driscoll, partner at Scale Venture Partners, will be joining the board of directors at Plus One Robotics.
“The labor shortage is hitting the shipping industry hard, and parcel picking is an often overlooked yet essential part of the process,” O’Driscoll said in a statement. “By automating the parcel handling piece, Plus One Robotics is rapidly modernizing an outdated system that’s no longer sustainable.”
| Funding amount | $50 million |
| Funding round | series C |
| Lead investors | Scale Venture Partners |
| Goal for the round | increase its capacity and rapidly scale deployment of its robotics platform |
| Total funding | $100 million |
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