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Locus Robotics, which makes autonomous robots for use in fulfillment centers and warehouses, said Wednesday it has landed $150 million in Series E funding led by investment firm Tiger Global Management and IT investment firm Bond.
The funding round brings to more than $260 million the amount that Wilmington, Massachusetts-based Locus has raised. Company executives say that Locus will ultimately go public but that a timetable for such an event has not been determined.
Companies such as Locus are in a sweet spot as demand for warehouse technology has soared due to the surge in e-commerce growth, a shortage of labor to fill an expanding warehouse footprint, and the ability of robotics applications to accelerate fulfillment productivity with near 100% accuracy, a must for businesses looking to meet ultra-tight fulfillment and delivery timetables.
In its latest report on the collaborative robot market, Interact Analysis has revised downwards the growth predictions made in our 2019 report. The main factor behind this downward revision is, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic, but there are other downward drivers, such as competition from small articulated and SCARA robots in industrial settings, and a slower than expected increase in cobot installations in non-industrial settings. Nevertheless, this report gives good grounds for optimism for the short to medium term in the collaborative robot sector.
V-shaped rebound and sustained growth predicted
The collaborative robot market weathered a difficult 2019 due to a slow-down in the global economy which affected the important Asian market the most, and a tumultuous 2020, when the market saw negative growth for the first time – -11.3% in revenue terms, and -5.7% in shipment terms. Factory and warehouse shut-downs slowed down demand and customers exercised caution with investme
Fetch Robotics Workforce issues and the need to automate plants for physical distancing has pushed the mobile robot market forward during 2020. Now it’s set to push further in 2021.
Interact Analysis has released a report on the mobile robot market that forecasts revenue growth of 24% during 2020. This comes despite the global chaos due to COVID-19. Revenues for collaborative mobile robots are set to reach $2.4 billion in 2020, and they are expected to surge by a further 50% in 2021 as the impact of the pandemic leads to greater demand for mobile automation and the mobile robot market.
According to the report, sales of automated guided vehicles (AGVs), which perform material handling tasks automatically without human intervention, but are limited to navigation using physical infrastructure, will lag behind sales of the more advanced autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) that can navigate without the need for external markers or infrastructure.
Mobile robot growth surged in 2020, covering land, air, and water. What will the next decade bring?
One of the key robotic trends that transcended all markets in 2020 and will continue over the next decade is mobility – and that’s not even counting autonomous cars. This mobility trend combines technologies from all key sectors like sensors, actuators, embedded vision, AI markets, edge computing, and more. Implementation of robotic mobility is growing on the manufacturing floor, hospitals, home care across the ground, air, and water.
According to a recent report from Interact Analysis, the mobile robot market revenues are forecasted to grow by nearly a quarter in 2020, despite the global chaos caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Revenues are set to reach $2.4 billion this year and will surge by another 50% in 2021 as the impact of the pandemic leads to greater demand for mobile automation.