Each red marker shows the start-up company name, city and website link. This is good free publicity for start-up companies, good for job-seekers, good for the robotics industry and informative for investors and gadget freaks everywhere. Robotics is happening, and it’s happening at a rapid pace all over the globe! And this mash-up is just a tiny reflection of that revolution.

Interestingly, there are very few industrial robot start-up companies; mostly the new companies are service robotic companies, a generic term for every form of robot except those used for industrial-grade manufacturing: surgical; healthcare; defense; space; security; personal service; shop assistance; unmanned aerial, underwater and ground vehicles; toys; vision enabled, etc.

These start-ups appear to be clustering in the Bay Area (Silicon Valley) of California, around Boston, Pittsburgh, Tokyo and Stockholm – all of which correspond with the locations of notable government or university-sponsored robotics research facilities, and in and around New York City. Each of those areas have ongoing entrepreneurial assistance programs for technology projects and provide nurturing and social get-togethers with prospective investors and fellow inventors and roboticists.

Many other young robotic companies have pushed beyond the start-up phase into one of our other directory categories shown below. And many more are missing because they are too stealthy to have a web or social media presence just yet or are in a language that is difficult to search and translate. Hence my personal request: if you know of a robotics start-up that isn’t included on the map, please send the information to: [email protected]. Thank you.

Although only 159 start-up companies are plotted, The Robot Report’s database has over 1,800 robotics links separated into the following categories:

… Industrial robot manufacturers
… Service robots for governmental and corporate use
… Service robots for personal use
… Ancillary businesses serving the robotics industry
… Start-up companies
… Educational and research facilities

Later this year we will be producing another mash-up from our database. Red markers will show the industrial robot makers, blue markers will show where service robotics companies are located, and green will be for start-up companies. Stay tuned! This one should be particularly illuminating.