Issue #3 - The Future of Manufacturing
Welcome to Issue #3. The first quarter of the year has been very busy. This issue focuses on manufacturing data, large scale 3D printing, automating warehouses and, as always, the automation of jobs.
I hope you enjoy reading it. Any feedback, shares or links are much appreciated.
Disclaimer: thoughts and opinions expressed in the newsletter are my own.
What I enjoyed reading
📦 When it comes to logistics, Amazon is definitely one of the most exciting companies to watch at the moment. Needless to say, the established logistics companies such as FedEx don't rest and compared to manufacturing companies have a higher pressure to innovate in my eyes. The NYT outlines FedEx strategy, how to increase automation and how to leverage robotics (check out their cool control room). Interestingly and this exactly mirrors what I wrote in the past two issues about the automation of jobs: "[...] but what has happened at the FedEx hub may be a surprise to people who fear that they are about to be replaced by a smart machine: a robot might take your role, but not necessarily your job." Of course, there are part of the jobs that are going to be automated for sure but there are also 8 warehouse jobs that robots can't do.
🤖 Speaking of the automation of jobs, this topic never gets boring. The Economist highlights the falling share of low-skilled manufacturing jobs in several countries with a particular focus on the car industry. At the same time, Wired gives a counter-example with the painting robot that 'didn't steal anyone's job'.
🔥 Sadly but true, last winter has been the warmest winter on record in the Arctic. If you think about climate change, CO2 is playing a very big role in it. A very complex problem to solve is filtering the CO2 out of the air (carbon dioxide removal). One of the best articles on this topic is this one by Quartz. Besides explaining the technology in detail, it also emphasizes the latest development of impressive companies in this area, most notably Climeworks and Carbon Engineering.
About industrial Startups and Companies
📊 Some of you might know the quote 'Manufacturing is data rich but information poor'. Besides getting this data from the machines, the question is where to store the data? Timescale is trying to solve this problem with its open-source time-series database designed for scalability and complex analysis. They call themselves a 'new database for the machine are'. For doing this, they announced a fresh $12M round led by Benchmark. As a side note, as far as I know, this is the first Benchmark deal related to manufacturing - NEA has been way more active with DesktopMetal, Konux, and Tulip for example.
For people who are interested in manufacturing data visualization, the BI company Tableau has published a webinar on that topic.
💸 Continuing on the importance of data, Samsara announced another $50M round led by their previous investors a16z and General Catalyst. The company is offering a platform for sensor data with a focus on fleet and industrial. Two things are noteworthy here: the two co-founders previously co-founded Meraki that Cisco acquired for $1.2bn and their transportation business adds over 1,700 new customers each quarter! Good reasons for their investors to double down on the company.
🤑 There have been very big funding rounds in FinTech in Berlin with N26 for example recently. Smaller but not less interesting is the Series A of the Munich-based startup Fazua. UnternehmerTUM Venture Capital Partners invested $8M into the company. Fazua manufactures e-bike drive systems. What's interesting is that they have become a strong competitor to Bosch within a short amount of time.
Btw, US-based 3D printing company Formlabs is doing an event in Munich about the Digital Factory with lots of relevant C-level people from GE, BMW and others and ride-sharing company Lyft opened their first European office in Munich. These are only anecdotes but they definitely speak for the ecosystem there.
🤖 When Playground Capital is investing in a company, I always like to take a closer look at the startup. Playground Capital is a venture fund co-founded by Andy Rubin, the Android co-creator and former Head of Robotics at Google. One of their latest investments is the $8M Series A in Agility Robotics. The company is working on a legged robot that can make deliveries, solving not the last mile but the last 100 feet. Here is an interesting interview about the investment and company with Bruce Leak, also co-founder of Playground Capital.
Additional thoughts on recent development
Large Scale 3D Printing
I'm fascinated by the impact 3D printing can have on manufacturing and write about that in the last issue already. So far, most of the 3D printing applications are focusing on small sizes. Now, how about printing large scale objects? When I stumbled upon Icon that is able to 3D print houses - yes, physical houses - I was super impressed. Even Fred Wilson wrote a short post. To better understand the company, I would recommend reading the company profile by The Verge.
Another interesting company that tries to make 3D printing on a large scale possible is AI Build, based in UK. They are using a combination of hardware (sensor-equipped robotic arms) and their own developed software for printing large scale objects.
Automating Warehouses
It seems to me that processes in warehouses, especially the 'pick and place' process, has become a very appealing area for entrepreneurs. We have seen a bunch of new startups trying to automate that process. Most notably is probably Kindred (US) with its spider-robot or Kinema Systems. Here is a cool video of how Gap is testing the Kindred robot. But also in Europe, you have now teams trying to solve that problem from a different angle such as NoMagic or Cambrian Intelligence.
Manufacturing Landscape
There are 30+ new startups in the pipeline for the next iteration which should be online in a few days.
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
P.S. I will be at the Hannover Messe on April 24-25th. Don’t miss my talk about 'Reinventing the Factory Stack' at the AWS Digital Factory booth on the 25th at 3.00 pm.
P.P.S. On Friday, April 20th, we’re hosting an afternoon event in Munich to discuss the topics of building a successful SaaS company, early-stage selling to enterprise companies, and much more. There are a few empty spots, please let me know if you want to join.