GreyOrange raises $140M for warehouse robots

Less than two weeks after opening its US headquarters, GreyOrange raised $140 million in Series C funding for its warehouse robots. The Series C round brings GreyOrange‘s total amount of funding to more than $170 million over three rounds. The Singapore-based company raised more than $30 million over two funding rounds in 2014-2015.

Mithril Capital, which was co-founded by Ajay Royan and Peter Thiel, led the Series C round. Other existing investors that participated in the round include Flipkart CEO Binny Bansal and Blume Ventures. Ajay Royan, co-founder and Managing General Partner of Mithril Capital, will join the GreyOrange board.

The new funding will enable GreyOrange to expand operations across Asia, Europe and the US. For example, GreyOrange is hiring 60-plus engineers for its R&D office in Boston, Mass. and expects to deploy 20,000 warehouse robots in the US over the next three years. GreyOrange already has its first US-based customer, an Atlanta-based company that will deploy 740 warehouse robots inside its facility. GreyOrange cannot talk about the project, but it tells The Robot Report a second US-based customer will be deploying its warehouse robots in the next few months.

Founded in 2011 by Samay Kohli and Akash Gupta, GreyOrange now has offices in India, Japan, Germany and the U.S. The company operates major R&D centers in India, the U.S. and Singapore.

“Fundraising events are important milestones in a company’s journey, and for GreyOrange, the funds will allow us to continue to invest in our R&D and supply chain to maintain our market-leading position,” says Kohli. He continues, “we’ve grown rapidly in recent years and will accelerate the expansion of our regional teams, especially within the U.S. We strongly believe in thinking global but operating local.”

GreyOrange serves e-commerce, retail, consumer electronics, fashion, third-party logistics, fast-moving consumer goods, apparel and industrial tools companies. Its products include

• Butler – an autonomous robot that uses goods-to-person technology for inventory storage, replenishment and order picking.
• Butler PickPal – an automated picking system that works with human employee to pick, process, consolidate and prepare orders. PickPal can achieve 500-600 picks per hour while working alongside a human and handle more than 100,000 SKUs that weigh up to 8.8 pounds.
• GreyMatter – a software platform that uses AI algorithms and machine learning to optimize path planning, maximize storage, streamline zoning, improve space utilization and accelerate order fulfillment.
• Two sortation systems, the Linear Sorter and Pick-Put-to-Light.

The US warehouse robotics market is expected to surpass $20 billion by 2024. The main driver is the booming US e-commerce market, which grew to $453.46 billion online in 2017, according to the US Commerce Department. That represents a 16 percent increase from the $390.99 billion spent in 2016. And the market shows no signs of slowing down.