Issue #11 - The Future of Manufacturing
Welcome to Issue #11 👋
This issue covers a lot of different robotic companies, the illusion of a connected factory, enabling as-a-service models and Munich.
For all the people who participated in our event in Munich - Manufacturing the Future - many thanks for joining Atomico and us. Also, thanks a lot for your feedback which is very helpful for the next event – I think an NPS of 82 is pretty good 😊
Ben and I shared our six takeaways on Digitally Transforming European Industry from the forefront of this rapidly growing community in this post.
I hope you enjoy reading it and if you do so, any feedback, shares or links are much appreciated!
Many thanks especially @Clément (P9), Joern (Oee Cloud).
Disclaimer: thoughts and opinions expressed in the newsletter are my own.
What I enjoyed reading
#robotics#
🤖 Amazon recently launched AWS RoboMaker – a platform to develop, test and deploy robotic applications. Their tool includes fleet management solutions and machine learning capabilities for robots. Launching RoboMaker is another move to strengthen their footprint in robotics after announcing that they are also working on picking robots for warehouses, a bit similar to what Kindred is doing.
#robotics#
Speaking of robots in warehouses, here is a cool video from Cdiscount, a leading eCommerce firm in France, how they use robots in their warehouse that can move in three dimensions. These so-called Skypods move the goods either in totes or on trays among the warehouse up to 10m. They also have a program for startups about the future of warehousing which is called The Warehouse, you should check it out if you are working in this field. Here is a snapshot of the Skypod:
#munich#
⛰️ VentureBeat recently highlighted that the startup ecosystem in Germany is much more fragmented compared to UK (London) and France (Paris) and especially praised Munich. I couldn’t agree more and the amount of talent from TU, LMU, and CDTM together with all the industrial companies make Munich a really interesting hub for B2B in my eyes. On top of that tech companies are increasing their presence in Munich – Google announced a partnership with TU Munich, Lyft opened an office there and IBM opened a new HQ for 1000 researchers and developers.
#robotics#
🤖The more humans are going to collaborate with robots and interact with them, the more critical it is that these robots are safe and won’t hurt any humans. Lidar sensors which are used mostly for autonomous vehicles so far are also appearing inside factories now. One of the companies that are pushing this technology forward is Veo Robotics. The company raised $12M from Lux, GV, and Next47. If this works and it’s safe, this allows a complete reinvention of car factories around robots rather than human labor. Safety in robotics is also a reason why I have met entrepreneurs who moved from the US to Europe because of the talent and expertise in this field in Europe. Here is a snapshot from Veo Robotics:
#mittelstand#
🛠️ It’s certainly true that the German Mittelstand and in general SMBs are more open to working with startups today than some years ago. There are some companies such as Viessmann that are really trying out many things – that’s great. However, this article in the German Handelsblatt is quoting a study by Deutsche Bank and BDI that “almost half of Germany’s largest Mittelstand companies already work with startups”. I wish this would be true but speaking to many entrepreneurs I’m really skeptical. Many companies are doing pilots and if you consider this as “working with startups” then it might be true – otherwise, I don’t think so, unfortunately.
#connectedfactory#
🏭 Andy from Speedinvest I describes in this post why the vision of a fully connected factory floor is still years away from mass adoption. He highlights a survey among German manufacturers where nearly 50% of the participants claim that they haven’t connected their production process at all. I think this is especially true for small and medium-sized factories. Big factories, especially within automotive, feel the pressure and are already more connected and might understand your solutions and the problem you are solving better when you’re talking to them. The reasons for the lack of adoption are security concerns, lack of standardization and legacy systems and significant upfront investments among others - see here:
About industrial Startups and Companies
#pizzarobot#
🍕 Chances are high that if you read this newsletter you like robots. But you also probably like Pizza. Well, then a dream comes true. Zume is a fascinating full-stack startup in the US that raised a massive growth round of $375M led by Softbank. They are making the pizza with the help of robots. But even more interesting, they also predict food trends and calculate the time it takes for delivering the pizza with their mobile kitchen. By that, they just start cooking the food at the right moment on the road so that it finished a few seconds before the truck approaches your home. Pizza at your house couldn’t be fresher (watch this video).
#investment#
🤑 Many of the robots you are seeing in automotive factories are actually not very smart and rather blind. There are many new approaches to teach robots to do things. Some companies are trying this by hand-engineering, they are taking the robotic arm by the hand to teach it new skills. Examples are Franka (full-stack with their own robot) or Wandelbots (for other robots without touching it). Another way can be computer vision by using cameras and sensor data. One of the companies in this space is German-based Micropsi that recently closed a $6M Series led by Project A Ventures.
#investment#
🤑 Many industrial companies are thinking about shifting to as-a-service models and I often state Kaeser as an example that sells now air-as-a-service instead of air compression machines. To help the migration, Syncron is using algorithms to predict failure and informs the manufacturer when they have to replace the machine parts. Even though the company is already 15 years old it looks like they started growing a lot recently which convinced Summit Partners to invest $67M. Clients include ABB, Claas, Renault and Siemens and other companies such as Relayr are also working on making equipment-as-a-Service models possible.
Additional thoughts on recent development
Reinventing the Factory Stack#podcast#
I recently did a 30min podcast where I talk about the factory stack and the industrial startup landscape. So instead of reading my writings, you can now listen to it as well, yeah.
Industrial Landscape#landscape#
I made a big update to my industrial startup landscape a couple of weeks ago and added 30+ companies. There are now in total ca. 250+ companies in the landscape - it's getting hot in here.
Thanks to everybody for supporting this newsletter and for sending me interesting links. As always, any input, shares, and feedback are always warmly welcome 🙏
Robin