Vecna Robotics reloads with $65 million venture round for AMRs and software

Backed by $65 million in new funding, the material handling automation vendor Vecna Robotics plans to develop new autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and software to address a growing market opportunity for pallet-moving automation, the firm said today.

Waltham, Massachusetts-based Vecna said the “series C” round was led by Tiger Global Management, along with additional funding from new investors Lineage Logistics, Proficio Capital Partners, and IMPULSE. It comes after a $50 million round in 2020.

The fresh venture capital follows a recent shift in company management, as Vecna in June 2021 hired Craig Malloy to become CEO, moved the previous CEO and founder, Daniel Theobald, to the role of Chief Innovation Officer, and added Josh Kivenko as its new CMO.

Stocked with new financing and leadership, the company is now aligned to help its clients meet supply chain challenges like the tight employment market, backers said. “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,” Griffin Schroeder, partner at Tiger Global Management, said in a release.

Toward that end, Vecna in 2021 announced its Mark 3 software release, which allows its AMRs to cruise at speeds of up to 6.7 miles per hour, nearly doubling their throughput capacity and setting a record as the industry’s fastest AMR solutions, the company said.

The recently closed “series C” round will now allow Vecna to further its development to support end-to-end automated material handling workflows, the firm said. 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.

 “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,” Vecna CEO Craig Malloy said in a release. “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.”