INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Technical enhancements through innovations like AI/ML, compute power and big data utilization continue to drive new performance milestones,
and a wide range of others.According to data from Pitchbook and Crunchbase, 2018 saw new highs for the number of venture deals and total
invested capital in the space, with roughly $5 billion in investment coming from nearly 400 deals
With robotics well on its way to again set new investment peaks in 2019, we asked 13 leading VCs who work at firms spanning early to growth
Coneybeer, Shasta VenturesAaron Jacobson, NEAEric Migicovsky, Y CombinatorHelen Liang, FoundersX VenturesAndrew Byrnes, Micron
GlobalBruce Leak, Playground GlobalJim Adler, Toyota AI VenturesParticipants discuss the compelling business models for robotics startups
automation, human replacement, transportation, climate change, and the evolving regulatory environment.Shahin Farshchi, Lux CapitalWhich
trends are you most excited in robotics from an investing perspective?The opportunity to unlock human superpowers:Increase productivity to
enhance creativity leading to new products and businesses.Automating dangerous tasks and eliminating undesirable, dangerous jobs in mining,
manufacturing, and shipping/logistics.Making the most deadly mode of transport: driving, 100% safe.How much time are you spending on
robotics right now? Is the market under-heated, overheated, or just right?Three-quarters of the new opportunities I look at involve some
sort of automation.The market for robot startups attempting direct human labor replacement, floor-sweeping, and dumb-waiter robots, and
robotic lawnmowers and vacuums is OVER heated (too many startups).The market for robot startups that assist human workers, increase human
productivity, and automate undesirable human tasks is UNDER heated (not enough startups).Are there startups that you wish you would see in
robotics startups that:Solve LATENT pain points in specific, well-understood industries (vs
building a cool robot that can do cool things).Focus on increasing HUMAN productivity (vs
trying to replace humans).Are solving for building interesting BUSINESSES (vs
emphasizing cool robots).Kelly Chen, DCVCThree years ago, the most compelling companies to us in the industrial space were in software
We now spend significantly more time in verticalized AI and hardware
Robotic companies we find most exciting today are addressing key driver areas of (1) high labor turnover and shortage and (2) new research
around generalization on the software side
For many years, we have seen some pretty impressive science projects out of labs, but once you take these into the real world, they fail
A few verticals we believe will experience a significant overhaul in the next 5 years include logistics, waste, micro-fulfillment, and
Companies who are used to buying outright machines are now more willing to explore RaaS (Robot as a Service) models for compelling robotic
On the other hand, companies exploring robotics in place of tasks with high labor shortages, such as trucking or agriculture, are more
ways robotics will transform industries
We do believe investing in this space requires the right technical know-how and network to evaluate and support companies, so momentum
the golden age of robotics
assembly robots found on automotive assembly lines around the world
These robots repeat basic tasks, over and over, and are usually separated by caged walls from humans for safety
However, this is rapidly changing
Advances in perception, driven by deep learning, machine vision and inexpensive, high-performance cameras allow robots to safely navigate
the real world, escape the manufacturing cages, and closely interact with humans.I think the biggest opportunities in robotics are those
One great example is long-haul trucking
Highway driving represents one of the easiest problems for autonomous vehicles, since the lanes tend to be well-marked, the roads have
gentle curves, and all traffic runs in the same direction
In the United States alone, long haul trucking is a multi-hundred billion dollar market every year
The customer set is remarkably scalable with standard trailer sizes and requirements for shipping freight
Yet at the same time, trucking companies have trouble hiring and retaining drivers
applying fertilizer, and eventually harvesting
One enormous challenge in this market, however, is that growing seasons mean that the robotic machinery has a lot of downtime and the cost
The other big challenge is that fields are very, very tough on hardware and electronics due to environmental conditions like rain, dust and
mud.There are a ton of important problems to be solved in robotics
The biggest open challenges in my mind are locomotion and grasping
opening and closing doors, climbing stairs, and picking items off of shelves and putting them down gently
Plenty of startups have tackled subsets of these problems, but to date no one has built a generalized solution
decades.Overall, I feel like the funding environment for robotics is about right, with a handful of overfunded areas (like autonomous
I think that the most overlooked near-term opportunity in robotics is teleoperation
Specifically, pairing fully automated robotic operations with occasional human remote operation of individual robots
Starship Technologies is a perfect example of this
Starship is actively deploying local delivery robots around the world today
Their first major deployment is at George Mason University in Virginia
They have nearly 50 active robots delivering food around the campus
center manually controls the robot remotely
Starship tracks and prioritizes these problems for engineers to solve, and slowly incrementally reduces the number of problems the robots
