Rapyuta Robotics brings in $51M for pick assist robots

Rapyuta’s pick assist robot can be trained in less than an hour and installed easily with no layout changes. | Source: Rapyuta Robotics

Rapyuta Robotics, a company that offers collaborative pick assist robots for use in warehouses, announced that it raised $51 million in Series C funding. Goldman Sachs led the funding round.

“While the global logistics industry is rapidly expanding due to rising e-commerce demand, it faces a wave of digitization and a challenge of labor shortage. As the industry seeks for automation solutions to improve efficiency, we are optimistic about the growth of Rapyuta Robotics as a pioneer in cloud robotics platforms,” Stephanie Hui, global co-head of growth equity at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, said.

The company offers a picking assistant autonomous mobile robot (AMR) that picks and carries orders between workers to reduce the amount of time they spend walking. The robot can be trained in less than an hour, and installation doesn’t require any layout changes.

Customers that have implemented the pick assist AMR have seen a doubling of productivity in their operations within five months, according to Rapyuta. It’s clients include SG Logistic, UPS, Nippon Express and Keiyo Distribution Warehouse.

The company plans to use the funding to expand development of the pick assist AMR, train partners, ramp up research and development, and increase awareness of AMRs and their usage in the logistics industry.

“Rapyuta Robotics will further its mission to make robots more attainable to global logistics users and to empower lives with new cloud robotics solutions,“ Gajan Mohanarajah, CEO and co-founder of Rapuyta, said. “We are grateful to Goldman Sachs and all our investors for their support of our vision to make robots more accessible by taking a platform approach.”

Rapyuta’s pick assist AMR runs on the company’s cloud robotics platform rapyuta.io. The platform provides software and tooling to accelerate robotics development.

The company began as a spinoff from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). While at ETH Zurich, Rapyuta’s founders, Mohanarajah and Arudchelvan Krishnamoorthy, now the CFO, worked on the RoboEarth and Cubli Projects. Rapyuta is based in Tokyo.