UPDATED 7/4/2017: Added acquisition of OC Robotics by GE Aviation.
June, 2017 saw two robotics-related companies get $50 million each and 17 others raised $248 million for a monthly total of $348 million. Acquisitions also continued to be substantial with SoftBank's acquisition of Google's robotic properties Boston Dynamics and Schaft plus two others acquisitions.
“The cutting-edge of autonomous driving has shifted squarely to deep learning. Even traditional autonomous driving teams have 'sprinkled on' some deep learning, but Drive.ai is at the forefront of leveraging deep learning to build a truly modern autonomous driving software stack.
“The leap from transactional automation to cognitive automation is imminent and it will forever transform the way we work,” says Frederic Laluyaux, President and CEO of Aera. “At Aera, we deliver the technology that enables the Self-Driving Enterprise: a cognitive operating system that connects you with your business and autonomously orchestrates your operations.”
Said Luis Dussan, CEO of AEye. “The biggest bottleneck to the rollout of robotic vision solutions has been the industry’s inability to deliver a world-class perception layer. Quick, accurate, intelligent interpretation of the environment that leverages and extends the human experience is the Holy Grail, and that’s exactly what AEye intends to deliver.”
“Every autonomous vehicle developer faces the same challenge—it is really hard to generate the numerous edge cases and the wide variety of real-world environments. Our simulation platform rapidly pumps out large volumes of rich training data to fuel these algorithms,” said Cognata’s Danny Atsmon
OC Robotics Technical Director Andy Graham said, “For 15 years, OC Robotics invested heavily to develop snake-arm robot technologies, and the aviation industry has always been a target area for this technology. This acquisition represents a significant opportunity for the OC Robotics team to deploy our technology through a world-leading organization.”