Vecna Robotics raises $65M in Series C funding

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Vecna Robotics creates autonomous mobile robots for warehouse solutions. | Source: Vecna Robotics

Vecna Robotics today raised $65 million in Series C funding led by Tiger Global Management, along with new investors Lineage Logistics, Proficio Capital Partners, and IMPULSE. The company has raised a total of $128.5M since it was founded.

The new financing will help fund the company’s technology roadmap with new autonomous mobile robots (AMR) and software. The company also plans to expand operations to meet new orders across a variety of markets.

“There is huge headroom for growth in automated material handling with over 5 billion pallets in the world being moved by more than 5 million forklifts and nearly 5 million manual operators,” said Craig Malloy, CEO of Vecna Robotics. “This investment, led by such a prominent and supportive group of investors, will allow us to accelerate our roadmap and deliver solutions to the market faster in order to meet the insatiable demand for increased throughput in material handling environments like factories and warehouses.”

“Shifts in the labor market are accelerating the need for automation throughout the global supply chain. Vecna Robotics is very well-positioned to help companies in warehousing, manufacturing, and distribution meet this challenge head-on with truly intelligent automation for pallet-sized loads,” said Griffin Schroeder, partner at Tiger Global Management.

The recently closed Series C round will allow Vecna Robotics to further its development to support end-to-end automated material handling workflows. The funding will also be used to extend the company’s development of Pivotal, a proprietary orchestration engine, to enable better integration with existing warehouse management systems as well as third-party automation solutions.

“Medium to large sized warehouse and manufacturing facilities are experiencing an undeniable shift in the ways that they manage critical workflows in response to labor shortages and demand spikes,” said Adam Forste, co-executive chairman of Lineage Logistics. “As an organization steadfastly committed to innovation, we are thrilled to support Vecna Robotics’ mission to intelligently automate how companies in warehousing and manufacturing respond to today’s most important supply chain challenges, focusing on employee safety and improving overall efficiency of material handling operations and throughput.”

“We continue to expand our relationship with Vecna Robotics across multiple facilities and workflows because of its innovative approach to solving real-world material handling challenges,” said Andy Johnston, senior director of innovation at GEODIS in Americas.

“For us, the magic of Vecna Robotics’ technology is about maximizing our throughput and efficiency — especially during continued industry-wide challenges,” he added. “As Vecna Robotics further expands its operational capacity and innovation with its latest funding round, that will help us continue to exceed our customers’ expectations for many years to come.”

Earlier this year, Vecna Robotics announced its Mark 3 software release, resulting in AMR solutions with speeds of up to 6.7 miles per hour, nearly doubling the throughput capacity. Leading up to this funding round, the company added new leadership with the hiring of Craig Malloy to CEO, the appointment of the company’s previous CEO and founder, Daniel Theobald, to Chief Innovation Officer and the addition of Josh Kivenko as Vecna Robotics’ new CMO.

All three executives bring a diverse set of skills and expertise along with extensive technology backgrounds, helping position the company to rapidly scale to meet the growing demand for autonomous solutions and orchestration while transforming supply chains worldwide for a more resilient and better tomorrow.

The company also participated in the first public demo of the MassRobotics Interoperability Standard. The new standard seeks to ensure that heterogeneous fleets of mobile robots can work efficiently together at the same facilities. The video below captures the interoperability demo at a FedEx facility.

Vecna Robotics’ existing investors include Blackhorn Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, Tectonic Ventures, Drive Capital, and Fontinalis Partners.

To learn more about Vecna’s roadmap, listen to this episode of The Robot Report Podcast, which features an interview with Daniel Theobald: