Nomagic earns $22 million for its e-commerce warehouse picking robot – TechCrunch

Robots are playing an increasingly large role in the world of logistics and e-commerce fulfillment – ​​where they are seen not only as a way to speed up operations but also to significantly reduce their operating costs – and Today, a startup that is developing special software and hardware in the area of ​​robotics is announcing some funding.

Titulara Polish start-up has built a robotic arm that can identify and select an item from an unordered selection (for example, from items in a box) and then deliver or pack it went somewhere else, raised $22 million in funding that it will be using towards growing and expanding its business.

Nomagic’s robotic arms were first deployed to pick up and move small consumer electronics and related items – phones, cables, small toys – before expanding into items such as bagged clothing. Kacper Nowicki, CEO who co-founded the company with Marek Cygan (CTO) and Tristan d’Orgeval (CSO), say that the plan is to add more categories like groceries over time, reflecting changing consumer habits and what people want. people are buying online these days. “That’s the long-term goal,” he said.

The company already has a number of clients in sectors ranging from fashion, e-commerce and third-party logistics providers – one of the standout highlights is Brack.ch, a The Swiss-based “everything” store is physically similar to Amazon. product range. And while it is currently basing its technology around computer vision to identify objects and read codes, over time it is likely to also incorporate other types of technology such as radio wave scanning to identify items.

Berlin’s Khosla Ventures and Almaz Capital co-led the round with European Investment Bank, with former backers Hoxton Ventures, Capnamic Ventures, DN Capital and Manta Ray also participating.

Nomagic’s most recent fundraising – a seed round of $8.6 million – in February 2020; and for the time being, it’s a wild move in the world of e-commerce.

Covid-19 has led to a dramatic increase in online shopping, but also a reassessment of how people can work in warehouses under pandemic concerns and restrictions, and in In some cases, some seriously re-evaluate how it operates and cut investments to adjust accordingly. changing (and sometimes difficult) business conditions. Nomagic’s technology contributes to all of those developments in a variety of ways.

The most obvious of these is around digital transformation, where companies are adopting robotic hardware as part of a broader process of updating systems and bringing in more automation. Nomagic quotes data from Research and market and Mordor It is estimated that the global warehouse automation market will be worth $31 billion by 2025 and the market for specific piece picking robots is growing at a rate of 62.5% and will be worth $2.9 billion. la in 2026.

In addition, there is a clear opportunity for robots to work in environments that humans might not be able to, because that environment is not suitable for them and modern labor laws (e.g. no lighting). , small space, no heating or cooling and long time); or because companies can’t afford that labor. Although Nomagic is also developing some hardware components, today the company focuses most of its R&D on software development, Nowicki says that eventually the technology will be able to work on a variety of hardware.

Given that much larger e-commerce giants like Amazon and Ocado are investing in their own robotics technology, building third-party services that can be adopted by smaller players will be the thing. needed to help them stay competitive. Nowicki argues that this is not to take humans out of work but to focus them on less repetitive tasks that robots can’t handle – a potentially even more important factor. for smaller organizations, with smaller staff and resource bases, should be considered. This is also the opportunity that investors see.

“More and more mundane jobs will be automated by robots in the coming years,” said Kanu Gulati, partner at Khosla Ventures. “We come early to support companies building promising, bold and impactful technologies like Nomagic and are thrilled with the momentum they have shown to customers.”