Ed Mullen, VP of sales for the Americas at Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR), has resigned. Mullen is now senior director of partnerships at Dexterity, a Calif.-based startup that emerged from stealth in 2020 and recently raised $140 million in Series B funding.
MiR, a leading developer of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), earned $64 million in revenue in 2021. It sold nearly 300 AMRs in December 2021 alone, setting a company record for most units sold in a single month. It is unclear how much of MiR’s revenue came from the Americas.
“Dexterity has done so many amazing projects over the last two years, proving that they are solving the industries most challenging automation tasks,” Mullen told The Robot Report via email. “We are now at a point that we must show deployment strength and scalability. For that reason, I will be focusing on bringing the world’s best systems integrators to partner with us on mass deployments. This will be an epic opportunity for systems integrators to expand their robotic business and share in the success of Dexterity.”
Mullen joined MiR in 2016 and, according to his LinkedIn profile, was the first employee of MiR Americas. Mullen implemented a distribution network and certified systems integrator channel. While it’s unclear how much the Americas contributed to MiR’s revenue in 2021, Mullen said in his LinkedIn profile the division grew to more than $27 million in sales in his five years with the company.
MiR is based in Denmark and was founded in 2013. It was acquired by Teradyne in 2018 for $272 million. Teradyne also owns AutoGuide Mobile Robots, Energid, and Universal Robots.
“Ed Mullen has done a fantastic job building a large distributor network and MiR’s business in North America over the past 6 years,” said Greg Smith, president of Teradyne’s industrial automation group. “Ed’s team drove nearly 40% growth in 2021. We are sorry to see him go, but he has an opportunity with an early-stage software company that was too good for him to pass up. We wish him all the best with his new venture.”
Ed Mullen
Prior to joining MiR, Mullen was VP of sales and marketing for Simplimatic Automation for one year. Before that, he was the national sales manager at Universal Robots USA, the world’s leading developer of collaborative robotic arms, for nearly three years.
Dexterity develops hardware-agnostic robotic systems that 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 company was founded in 2017, and its Series B round valued the company at $1.4 billion.
Dexterity’s 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.
At the time of the Series B funding, Dexterity said its systems handled 50,000-plus SKUs and 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 founder and CEO Samir Menon appeared on The Robot Report Podcast in November 2021. You can listen to the interview below.
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