Avidbots sweeps up $70M for industrial cleaning robots

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An Avidbot autonomously cleans a mall floor surface. | Source: Avidbots

Avidbots, a producer of industrial cleaning robots, announced that it closed a $70 million Series C funding round. The company plans to use the round of funding to expand its fleet of robots and enhance its autonomy software. 

Avidbots hopes to bring its industrial cleaning robots to customers in automation growth markets, like the United States, and worldwide by investing in its sales and marketing efforts. It plans to add over 100 employees in product, engineering, sales and marketing over the next 12 months. 

“This is a special milestone in our company’s development. A special thank you to all our customers around the world as well as Avidbotters past and present for their tireless efforts to help us get here,” Faizan Sheikh, Avidbots CEO and co-founder, said. “We are very excited about the future as this financing allows us to accelerate our timelines for bringing new products to market as well as continuously improve our autonomous driving software and service for existing customers to deliver an even better experience and greater value.”

The company’s flagship robot Neo 2 is an autonomous robot floor scrubber. The robot can help clean businesses, airports, schools and warehouses. 

Jeneration Capital, a capital asset manager specializing in technology and tech-enabled investments in China, led the funding round. The funding round also included existing investors True Ventures, Next 47, SOSV, GGV Capital, BDC Capital, Golden Ventures and Kensington Capital Partners. BMO Capital Partners, Golden Vision Capital and Nicola Wealth were new investors in the round. 

“We are excited to partner with Avidbots as they continue to deliver best-in-class robotic solutions to meet the industry demand for automation in the commercial cleaning marketplace,” said Tony Zhang, partner at Jeneration Capital. “Our investment solidifies the confidence we have in robotics players that deliver strong value-add solutions that lessen employee workload and fatigue levels from laborious work. As a result, employees can focus on higher-value activities across the organization.”

Avidbots has raised $107 million to date, and currently has more than 1,000 robots deployed in more than a dozen countries throughout North America, Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Europe. Along with the funding, Avidbots announced that it has doubled down on its investment in Kitchener-Waterloo by securing additional space to support R&D and testing.