Komissarova describes why the timing for starting Grishin Robotics was just right, and shares some of the initial feedback from different parts of the robotics community.

She also talks about differences between the companies that get funded and the ones that that don’t, what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur in robotics, and the areas within consumer robotics where we are likely to see strong development in the next few years.

You can support Robots in Depth on Patreon. Check out all the Robots in Depth videos here.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Robots Podcast#116: Grishin Robotics
• Dmitry Grishin on evaluating robotic investment opportunities
• Grishin’s first investment: Double Robotics

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel inspects the Renningen research campus: “Bosch’s own Stanford.” Image: Bosch

We have reported 37 equity fundings and 25 acquisitions so far this year. It’s not just the car companies searching for talent and innovation in their new Silicon Valley centers. Israel, Russia, China and big companies like Bosch, SoftBank, Apple and Google are all investing in robotics for various strategic reasons.

Many new robotics companies have been acquired this year and even more have been funded. Drone makers 3D Robotics, DJI Innovations and Yuneec Aviation all received massive amounts of equity funding ($50M, $75M and $60M respectively). But even more money was invested by acquisitions. Adept Technologies was acquired by Japanese OMRON Industrial Automation for $200M, Universal Robots by Teradyne for $350M, VGo by Vecna for an undisclosed amount, Segway by Chinese Ninebot and gomTec by ABB. The rationale behind each purchase was strategic as was the $600M joint venture supporting the roll-out of the Pepper robot in Japan and China by SoftBank, Alibaba and Foxconn.

Additionally, three R&D ventures stand out as particularly far-reaching and interesting:

A new Sino-Israeli Robotics Institute is being developed as the centerpiece of a $2bn industrial park in the Guangzhou region of China. It will house entities built around the technology developed jointly by Israeli and Chinese researchers at the new institute. “China is a major opportunity for us, and manufacturers there are very motivated to take advantage of our technology. There are many factories that will be interested in the technology developed at the Institute” said Zvi Shiller, chairman of the Israel Robotics Association.

Earlier this year there was another Chinese joint venture with the Russians. The Skolkovo Foundation and Chinese Cybernaut Investment Group inked a deal to establish an R&D business incubator at the Skolkovo Innovation Center in the outskirts of Moscow, with at least 15 startups in IT and robotics, space, energy-efficiency tech and new materials, which will be developed and marketed with China.

Bosch, the Germany-headquartered global conglomerate, began moving into their new $350M research center outside of Stuttgart. The Bosch Group employs 360,000 people worldwide and generated sales of $55.6bn in 2014 from four business sectors: Mobility Solutions, Industrial Technology, Consumer Goods, and Energy and Building Technology. The new facility consists of 14 multi-story buildings, 11 labs and workshop buildings and two service buildings. The new center (Bosch also has a Research and Technology Center in Palo Alto, California), in Renningen, is near Mercedes and BMW and will house about 1,700 creative minds doing applied industrial research.* “Like a university, our new campus brings together many faculties. Here, we want our researchers to do more than just think about what the future could bring. We want them to be successful entrepreneurs as well. Renningen (and this new campus) is Bosch’s own Stanford and an expression of our faith in Germany as a technology location,” said Dr. Volkmar Denner, chairman of the Bosch board of management.

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* I visited two Bosch startups in the Renningen area last year as their new campus was under construction. Wholly-owned by Bosch entrepreneurial startups dotted the office landscape all over the area. The new campus, and Bosch’s encouragement of interdisciplinary collaboration, is sorely needed and shows the company’s goal of staying one step ahead of technological breakthroughs, while adding some of the benefits of a unique community environment.

Kiva warehouse robots

Clever ads that emphasize ROI, presentations that show production benefits, new robot sales records, capital expenditure for warehousing systems and increased attendance at trade shows are all focusing attention on the business case for robotics.

The Robotics Industries Association (RIA) reports that North American robot sales set new records for the first half of 2015: 14,232 robots, valued at $840m, were ordered during that period. Sales in the semiconductor sector (30%), automotive components (23%) and life sciences (8%) increased strongly. In contrast, orders to automotive OEMs were down 18% from their record highs in 2014. In March,  RIA offered an in-depth return on investment calculator and tutorial by Tanya Anandan. Anandan also produced a more recent article about how new robots are using various sensors and cameras to raise their IQ. Bottom line: as sensors, cameras and CPUs get cheaper and more capable, they are enabling robots to sense, see and do more at less cost.

The Robot Report’s monthly recap of fundings, IPOs and acquisitions has confirmed the broadening interest by business and finance. Funding in the first six months of 2015 was greater than for all of 2014 and the number of strategic acquisitions has grown as well.

One of the presentations at the recent Automation World Conference described a recently built facility in the sweet potato business. Utilizing camera-aided sorting systems, automated case erection, weighing and filling stations, and robotic palletizing and shrink wrapping systems, the new facility now only requires about 40 people to ship 50,000 lbs/hr where it used to need 75 people to ship 20,000 lbs/hour. The control software also allows the firm to put unique codes at the item level that enables complete track and trace details from farm to warehouse to packaging to consumer.

In a recent advertisement, Universal Robots (UR) describes how a medical device maker freed up 11 full-time workers to handle more complex tasks when they deployed three UR robots. The ROI on those robots was less than six months. “We were looking at cost, accuracy, ease of implementation and ease of use. The Universal Robots nailed it in all those areas,” said their Director of Engineering.

Three industrial robot trade shows this year — Automate, Promat and CIROS — have all drawn record crowds, had greater floor space and more exhibitors. At Promat, which focused on material handling, warehousing and distribution center automation and robotics, the consensus was that the show produced more orders than any previous event.

All of these disparate items, when combined, imply a serious business case – and growing momentum – for the deployment of robots.