Boxbot brings in $12M for package handling system

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Boxbot’s system dynamically adapts the space required for each payload. | Source: Boxbot

Boxbot, a company that develops three-dimensional conveyor systems that transform package handling, has raised $12 million in Series A funding. This brings the company’s total funding raised to date to $29.5 million. 

Boxbot’s package handling system brings together intelligent software with a novel hardware platform designed for high-throughput operations. The company plans to use the new funding to accelerate the company’s mission of enabling carriers to provide more efficient delivery experiences and bolster the team’s engineering and business operations. 

“Carriers have expanded their network capacities aggressively during the hypergrowth phase of e-commerce preceding and throughout COVID,” Boxbot founder and CEO Austin Oehlerking said. “The next phase will be about using automation to enable volume growth through higher productivity, especially as the lasting impact of labor shortages and inflation are acutely felt.”

Boxbot’s platform transforms conveyors into intelligent, three-dimensional package handling systems. The system doesn’t require any pick stations or humans in the loop. Its platform can store, sort, and sequence size-agnostic, high-throughput payloads while requiring a minimal physical footprint.

The system maximizes storage density by dynamically adapting the space required for each payload in real time. It is designed for maximum flexibility and can be installed in both new and existing facilities. 

With Boxbot’s system, customers can process up to 4,000 parcels per hour, achieve double their package throughput using half the space, and reach fifteen-minute vehicle load times. 

Playground Global led the funding round, which also included participation from Maersk Growth (the venture arm of A.P. Moller), Toyota Ventures, Pear Ventures, and Artiman Ventures. Playground Global Venture Partner Richard Peretz, the former CFO of UPS, will be joining Boxbot’s board of directors. 

“Boxbot is modernizing conveyor belts for smarter dispatch,” Peretz said. “I’ve seen firsthand that there is a massive opportunity to shift manual processes to machine-enabled smart and efficient solutions leveraging software and hardware. Boxbot’s one-stop solution is a versatile and integrated system that works across a variety of areas in the supply chain.”

Boxbot aims to drive down the cost of last-mile delivery through warehouse automation that unlocks transformative applications. These applications include wave-based vehicle dispatch, real-time route density optimization, merge-in-transit that reduces last-mile stop count, consumer pick-up/drop-off, and bonded storage.