Two issues are for sure: 1) There continues to be lots of pleasure round warehouse robotics and a couple of) Geek+ is extremely good at raising money based mostly on that reality. The Beijing-based warehouse robotics agency simply raised one other $100 million in funding, labeled a “Collection E1,” with participation from Intel Capital, Vertex Progress and Qingyue Capital Funding.
The final time we wrote about the company was nonetheless pretty early on within the pandemic — June 2020 — when it had simply raised a $200 million Collection C. Meantime, the corporate raised an undisclosed Collection D final yr. Definitely there’s no lack of investor curiosity within the agency in the meanwhile, with this most up-to-date spherical valuing Geek+ at someplace round $2 billion.
I’d say it’s in all probability a good suggestion to get funding whereas the funding’s good. Whereas the area will nearly definitely proceed to develop, there’s prone to be a little bit of a correction right here, as investments reply to broader market tendencies. In the meantime, Geek+ is posting spectacular numbers, together with $150 million in income final yr, coupled with $300 million in orders. As pandemic waves proceed to end in shutdowns in China and elsewhere, it’s straightforward to see why corporations proceed investing in these applied sciences.
Geek+ mentions “international enlargement” as one of many main motivators for its looking for extra funding. Notably, fellow Beijing-based agency, ForwardX Robotics expanded into the U.S. earlier this month, on the heels of its personal Collection C. In July, Geek+ introduced deployments in each North and South America. The agency additionally has a number of accomplice offers in Europe.
“With the first-mover benefit, Geek+ has already developed a stable aggressive benefit in international markets, bringing in a relentless driving pressure for enterprise growth,” Geek+ founder and CEO Yong Zheng mentioned in a launch. “This, coupled with our three know-how pillars of robotics, techniques, and algorithms, has not solely allowed Geek+ to develop a full product line, but in addition enhance R&D effectivity whereas decreasing R&D prices.”
In fact, stateside enlargement finds the businesses competing with an already crowded market of home warehouse robotics companies that provide a wide range of each greenfield and brownfield options for automating the warehouse area. Geek+ produces a wide range of completely different robotics techniques, although at its core, the corporate affords a Kiva-style wheeled robotic designed to cart round stock cabinets.
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