In July 2019, robotics transaction is dropped but the total amount is increased. There were 21 funding in July 2019 when compared with 42 in the month of June. In July 2019, the technology for robots, self-driving cars, and intelligent systems in healthcare is the big winners. It is followed by software, supply chain automation, artificial intelligence, consumer robots, and services. The venture capitalists focused on transportation which includes automated vehicles and supporting technologies. There were various Al transactions in July for self-driving cars.
According to the Robot Report, there are more than $10.1 billion deals worldwide in July 2019 when compared to $1.1 billion in the June month of 2019. One of the best deals in July 2019 was Volkswagen’s invests in Argo Al with Ford Motor Corp. as a part of a partnership. Argo Al includes Volkswagen Autonomous Intelligent Driving Unit to develop self-driving cars.
The robotic investors are supporting hardware and software development of the self-driving cars. The Toyota Al and BMW Ventures participated for Recogni Inc. which uses a ‘Vision Cognition Processor’ for the efficiency of autonomous vehicles. The processor makers are getting interested in autonomous transportation. Safety was a major concern for robotics investors. The largest reported healthcare robotics transaction is the Great Belief International Ltd. with TransEnterix Inc. for Autolap. The Autolap creates a positioning system for laparoscopic surgery. Neocis utilize the Yomi robot which helps in dental surgery. Activ Surgical utilizes Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot. Virtual Incision Corp. works for the abdominal procedure system.
Some service robots are used for securing facilities, cleaning up pollution and mowing lawns. Iflytek works on speech recognition used in service-customer robots. Gaiya Environmental’s robot is designed for pollution remediation. Yamaha Motor Ventures are the investor of Exyn Technologies Inc. for aerial drones for energy and defense industries. Robotics companies generate revenue from the manufacture of robotics products, software or hardware sub-systems, enable the technologies for robots or services that support robotics device. For this analysis, drones and autonomous vehicles are the robots and CNC systems and 3D printers are the hard automation.
Investment for the robots comes from corporate investment groups, venture capital firms, angel investors and other such sources. Funding information can be collected from various private and public sources. It also includes press releases from investment and corporation groups, industry publications and corporate associations. With this, information also comes from seminars and conference sessions, public interviews, investors and others.
Source: https://www.therobotreport.com/?s=Robotics+investments+recap%3A+July+2019