Dexterity raises $140M to scale full-stack robotic picking

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After emerging from stealth mode in July 2020 with $56.2 million in Series A funding, Redwood City, Calif.-based Dexterity today raised another $140 million in Series B equity funding and debt. The latest round valued Dexterity, which has already raised more than $200 million since it was founded in 2017, at $1.4 billion.

The Series B round was led by existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Kleiner Perkins. The round had additional participation from Obvious Ventures, B37 Ventures and Presidio Ventures. Dexterity said it will use the new capital to support its growth as its first thousand robots are deployed into production.

Dexterity’s hardware-agnostic robotic systems allow logistics customers to automate pick-pack tasks and can handle complex manipulations in unpredictable environments. Its robots can be used in kitting, fulfillment, palletizing and depalletizing and singulation applications.

The robots use artificial intelligence, advanced control theory, computer vision, and the sense of touch to adapt quickly, making them safe to work alongside humans. Dexterity also designs its systems so that the robots can move on rails, pack items, and collaborate with other robots and humans. For instance, two robots can collaborate to pick trays or crates and move them across a work area if required.

Dexterity said its robotic systems have handled 50,000-plus SKUs and have performed more than 14 million picks for customers, which include two of the four largest parcel carriers. The SKUs the robots have handled include loosely packed, deformable polybags, hot-dog buns, floppy tortillas, cardboard boxes, bags of earthworms, and trays and crates of consumer food.

Dexterity’s full-stack approach includes software, hardware design and integration, deployment, and 24/7 support with a performance guarantee for customers as they scale up. Its systems can either be purchased via a Capex model with software licensing or leased under a Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) model.

“Customers in retail, consumer goods manufacturing, and parcel handling need robots to scale quickly in order to manage the ever-increasing volume and variety of packages moving through their distribution centers,” said Dexterity CEO Samir Menon. “Dexterity is grateful to be at the forefront of delivering intelligent robotic systems in production across existing customer sites with the goal of rapidly transforming their warehouse operations.”

While it came out of stealth in 2020, The Robot Report named Dexterity a startup to watch after seeing it at Automate/ProMat 2019.

Dexterity also made a number of strategic hires. Jason Barton from Realtime Robotics and Rethink Robotics joined the company as VP of Partnerships. Jonathan Briggs joined Dexterity as VP of 3PL and parcel delivery sales after years at both Quiet Logistics and DHL. Dexterity also hired Michael Perry as its first VP of marketing, who joined from Boston Dynamics. Cliff Kalinowski was named head of service operations from Mainspring Energy, Andrew Heck was hired as head of strategic finance from Morgan Stanley, and Sumit Chopra was named head of software support from Cisco and Amazon Web Services.