Robco is valued at over a billion dollars and is one of the German robotics unicorns

The start-up is now valued at more than a billion dollars. Company boss Roman Hölzl assumes that sales will triple this year – again.

Roman Hölzl: The company boss co-founded Robco in 2020. Photo: Robco

Berlin. Germany now has three so-called unicorns in the field of robotics alone. After Agile Robots from Munich and Neura Robotics from Metzingen, the Munich industrial robotics specialist Robco is now valued by investors at more than a billion dollars. “We have raised a total of another $40 million in new capital,” said company boss Roman Hölzl to the Handelsblatt. Employees were able to use the round to sell their shares for a profit.

Capital is not the only lever to achieve a lot, said Hölzl, referring to the comparatively small cash injection that Robco received. Neura Robotics raised a financing round of up to $1.4 billion in early summer and thus made many headlines. According to insiders, Agile Robots is also said to be working on a new round.

The company Robco, founded six years ago, has developed a kind of modular system for industrial robots with which robots can be installed ready for operation in one or two days. They can then take on tasks such as palletizing or pick-and-place tasks where items are lifted and repositioned.

The core of Robco technology is the self-developed software, to which your own hardware modules can usually be docked. Using a digital twin, the components can be configured and programmed remotely. Robco now sees itself as a “robotics company with a focus on physical AI that brings autonomous processes to industry”.

International investors dominate

Since its inception, Robco has raised more than $200 million. Existing international investors such as Sequoia and Lightspeed took part in the latest round. But new investors also came in such as Cherry Ventures and the European Tech Collective, a group of founders of successful European technology companies.

» Read also: Top investor Luciana Lixandru: “Europe will have its moment in the sun”

“Robco is one of the few companies in Europe that not only researches physical AI, but also brings it into factories today,” said Lightspeed investor Alex Schmitt. And Sequoia Capital partner Luciana Lixandru sees Robco working toward a future “in which AI not only generates content, but acts independently in the physical world.”

According to Hölzl, the new money would not have been necessary. You still have around $100 million in the bank. But the 40 million would also have ensured that Robco is now one of the unicorns.

The company now has several hundred customers and has sold more than 1,000 systems. According to Hölzl, sales grew threefold last year. He wants to achieve that again this year. Hölzl did not give any specific figures.

“Alfie” is also expected to drive growth next year. In March, Robco plans to bring the autonomous industrial robot onto the market, which the company already presented at the Hannover Messe.

Alfie: The autonomous industrial robot is scheduled to come onto the market next spring. Photo: Alfie:

Hölzl assumes that the US business will be similar in size to that in Europe in one to one and a half years. In order to stimulate this development, he himself moved to the USA, opened a research laboratory in San Francisco, took over the company Rapid Robotics and set up a production facility in Austin, Texas.

The plan, however, is to return to Germany after less than two years in the USA.

More: The 100 billion euro plan: Three people from Munich are daring to do what Germany has failed to do for years

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