Photoneo announces BRIGHTPICK and $21 million in funding

Photoneo’s 3D cameras can improve a robot’s accuracy. | Photo Credit: Photoneo

Photoneo, a provider of 3D sensors and automated fulfillment solutions, brought in $21 million in Series B funding and announced the new business unit of the company, BRIGHTPICK.

The funding round was led by IPM Group, with additional support from AI Capital, EarlyBird, Venture to Future Fund and Credo Ventures. The round also included investors that participated in previous funding rounds.

“We are happy that our disruptive technologies and ability to spot market potential at the right time, and forecast its future developments, earned the trust of our investors, convincing them that Photoneo is primed to lead the next-generation automation of orders fulfillment,” said Jan Zizka, co-founder and CEO of Photoneo.

Watch how the unloading of pallets can be automated with absolute precision and reliability using our robust 3D vision technology and a strong FANUC robot. The solution was developed by MV Center. More info here: https://t.co/jEDDcyufeq #automation #depalletization #3Dvision pic.twitter.com/RWVx2sIgnK

— Photoneo (@photoneo) December 3, 2021

Photoneo plans to use the funding to accelerate its 3D sensor business, as well as allow it to expand BRIGHTPICK. BRIGHTPICK has had a number of successful pilot integrations, according to the company.

BRIGHTPICK is a fully automated fulfillment solution for warehouses and dark stores. BRIGHTPICK can be modified to fit a variety of fulfillment centers, from nano to central fulfillment centers.

“We identified a gap in the order fulfillment sector. We combined our unique technologies to develop a first-of-its-kind end-to-end solution for fully automated fulfillment centers,” said Zizka. “The potential of this next-gen warehouse automation technology is immense as it is highly flexible and scalable, maximizing throughput with minimum effort. It helps optimize processes, save space, and increase efficiency by 3 to 5 times compared to manual labor.”

BRIGHTPICK’s fulfillment solution can be deployed in days, according to the company. It can store between 1,000 and 50,000 SKUs.

Unlike other fulfillment solutions, like AutoStore’s grid method, BRIGHTPICK’s robot runners are vision navigated, using 3D vision. The robots retrieve totes, while orders are consolidated and dispatched by mobile robots. BRIGHTPICK’s robots are able to pick items every seven seconds, according to the company.

Photoneo was founded in 2013. The company’s main goal is to automate monotonous and risky tasks by deploying vision-guided robots.