After 20 years of developing robots for hospitals, NASA and the U.S. military, Cambridge-based Vecna wants to help give Amazon’s competitors the upper hand. And, for the first time, the company is looking to raise outside capital — as much as $50 million — to chase its dream of changing the way ecommerce orders are fulfilled.
But instead of focusing on the hardware side of logistics robots, Vecna is releasing a new artificial intelligence-powered software product that can essentially bring all of a fulfillment center’s robots under control of a “central brain." The system can manage the various kinds of warehouse robots Vecna has developed, but it can also integrate other robots and material handling systems made by other companies, Daniel Theobald, co-founder and chief innovation officer at Vecna, told me.
Theobald, who is also a co-founder and board member for industry group MassRobotics, said it's important for robotics companies to find ways to let their systems interact with each other because customers shouldn't be locked into one solution.
"This idea of a reasonable open standard for robotics is very important for the progress of this industry," he said.
The company’s new “end-to-end” logistics solution can also run simulations and help companies determine which configuration of robots will give them the best return on investment. This approach, Theobald said, gives companies guidance on where they should make investments first, as well as a roadmap for future upgrades.
To help the company reach a wider market, it’s looking to raise from $10 million to $50 million, Theobald said. Up until this point, the company has been completely self-funded and has spent $52 million of its own capital to develop the robots.
“What we’ve always said is we would take outside investments when we think we can provide a return to the shareholders,” Theobald said. With Vecna’s new product, that time appears to be now.
Vecna is among a number of Boston-area robotics startups that are making a big push with logistics and warehouse robots — a market that is expected to grow from $1.9 billion in 2016 to $22.4 billion in 2021, according to a recent report. Last week, Somerville-based RightHand Robotics introduced its new hardware and software system that can pick up small objects up to 1,000 times an hour, and Waltham-based 6 River Systems introduced a new warehouse robot that can guide workers.
