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Inventor Dean Kamen and Cybernetix Ventures co-founder Mark Martin at Robotics Make investments 2024. Credit score: Eugene Demaitre
BOSTON — Whereas many robotics occasions are vendor-driven, some share the views of different components of the rising world ecosystem. Final month, the second annual Robotics Make investments occasion convened, gathering enterprise capitalists, innovators, and startups.
Coming a month after the Robotics Summit & Expo, which centered on builders of economic methods for the manufacturing, warehousing, and healthcare industries, amongst others, Robotics Make investments offered the investor viewpoint. Whereas a lot of the audio system and attendees acknowledged post-COVID-19 financial challenges, they offered examples and recommendation for firms seeking to scale.
Keynote audio system included Dean Kamen, founding father of FIRST Robotics, DEKA, and ARMI, and Marc Raibert, co-founder of Boston Dynamics and The AI Institute.
The occasion additionally featured panel discussions about points starting from the acquisition panorama and sustainability to a debate on whether or not humanoid robots are actuality or hype. One-on-one conferences and deep-dive roundtables on Day 2 allowed smaller teams of buyers and startups to satisfy.
Fady Saad, co-founder of Cybernetix Ventures, which organized Robotics Make investments, replied to the next questions from The Robotic Report:
Robotics Make investments grows
What was the ultimate variety of attendees, and the place did they arrive from?
Fady Saad, Cybernetix Ventures. Supply: LinkedIn
Saad: Robotics Make investments introduced collectively over 260 of the brightest minds in robotics, representing 9 international locations and 6 robotics clusters.
The international locations had been the U.S., Canada, Japan, Belgium, India, Germany, Switzerland, the U.Ok., and Denmark. The clusters included the Pittsburgh Robotics Community, MassRobotics, and Silicon Valley Robotics, in addition to New York, Zurich, and Germany.
What was the combo of VCs, corporates, and founders?
Saad: Over 130 founders, 60 buyers, and roughly a dozen corporates attended the occasion. The remainder of the attendees had been a mixture of reporters, analysts, and occasion underwriters.
How did this 12 months’s programming evolve from the primary Robotics Make investments?
Saad: This 12 months, we added a second day that included one other keynote speaker, interactive roundtables, and curated 1:1 conferences.
The most important piece of suggestions from final 12 months was to incorporate extra time for attendee networking. So, we added an prolonged networking reception to Day 1, leveraged the interactivity of the roundtables to function extra structured networking, and included once more the 1:1 curated conferences. The addition of the roundtables allowed attendees to debate much more particular, deep-dive matters in robotics.
We’re additionally actually proud that not one of the keynotes or panel classes had been repeats from final 12 months. As a substitute, all of them centered on matters pertinent to the 2024 robotics local weather.
Use circumstances for automation are maturing, word audio system
What had been some key takeaways from the occasion?
Saad: Before everything, it was invigorating to see the worldwide attain of the robotics group. It was additionally inspiring to see how passionate the ecosystem is in making an affect on a few of the largest challenges dealing with the world in the present day, similar to renewable vitality, recycling, and extra.
One other important takeaway is that robotics is a whole funding class in and of itself. We will’t couple robotics with SaaS [software as a service] or roll it into “deep tech.” It’s its personal class, with particular concerns round growth, go-to-market, and fundraising, and it ought to be handled as such.
A takeaway that ought to encourage the whole group is that each business stage is specializing in robotics innovation, adoption, and use-case functions. From founders and buyers to service suppliers, healthcare giants, and different companies in logistics, manufacturing, and extra, representatives emphasised that robotics is the long run. The important thing consideration right here is that robots want to supply worth to human operators and carry out duties with unimaginable reliability.
And I can’t neglect to say one of the vital thrilling matters of the occasion: humanoids. It’s clear that humanoids are one other product class. Nonetheless, the continued questions of, “What are one of the best use-case functions?” and “How lengthy will product-market match take when it comes to functionality, value, security and high quality?” stay to be answered. One factor is for positive, although — the world is watching.
From left: Frank Kjerstein, Reblade; Duncan Turner, SOSV; Rebecca Hu, Glacier; and Abe Murray, Alleycorp, talk about sustainability at Robotics Make investments. Credit score: Eugene Demaitre
What had been some noteworthy moments at Robotics Make investments?
Fady: Like the important thing takeaways, it’s exhausting to single out my favourite moments. That stated, a few of the stand-out moments embrace the distinctive vitality that Dean Kamen delivered to his keynote fireplace chat, in addition to the passion and discourse all through the humanoid debate.
I additionally loved Marc Raibert’s story of constructing and rising Boston Dynamics, and the attendee enthusiasm, curiosity and insights that got here from the roundtable discussions.
What was the suggestions from the roundtables and one-on-one conferences?
Saad: We’re nonetheless gathering, compiling and summarizing the takeaways from the roundtables and 1:1 conferences. The suggestions we’ve gotten to this point has been that each the roundtables and conferences had been extraordinarily precious.
Attendees additionally shared that the roundtables had been particularly good for studying, networking, and relationship constructing.
Boston Dynamics and the AI Institute’s Marc Raibert with Cybernetix Ventures’ Fady Saad at Robotics Make investments. Credit score: Eugene Demaitre
The long run seems vibrant for robotics funding
On stability, do you assume the panelists had been bullish on robotics, and why?
Saad: Sure, we really feel that they had been bullish, which displays the angle of many sectors, similar to manufacturing, development, logistics, healthcare, local weather, and agriculture.
The adoption of robotic options, or as many panelists known as them, “sensible machines,” is changing into not solely extra ubiquitous but in addition essential to sustain with calls for. That is very true in industries like local weather tech. In truth, on the occasion, we heard the local weather tech panel repeatedly say that we gained’t be capable to remedy the local weather disaster with out robotics.
Equally, as the concept of reshoring U.S. manufacturing positive aspects traction, it’s evident that to make this a actuality inside the demand and price restrictions, we should undertake robotic options.
So, we’re again to the query, “What are one of the best use circumstances for robotics?” As attendees know, answering this query is a central focus and theme of Robotics Make investments.
Do Cybernetix Ventures and the opposite occasion organizers have any plans for subsequent 12 months?
Saad: Whereas we aren’t disclosing particulars now, I can say that Robotics Make investments 2025 will undoubtedly construct on this 12 months’s occasion, with refreshed panels and roundtable matters, high-caliber audio system, and unimaginable networking alternatives.
As we glance to 2025, we are able to’t wait to convey the robotics group collectively once more to assist construct the subsequent wave of robotics unicorns and drive the business ahead.
From left: Andrea Thomaz, Diligent Robotics; Peter Wurman, Sony AI America; Juliette Chevalier, Scale Enterprise Companions; Kanu Gulati, Khosla Ventures, and Ari Kelkar, McKinsey & Co., talk about AI and robotics in Boston. Credit score: Eugene Demaitre