Autonomous mobile robot (AMR) manufacturer Locus Robotics has announced US$150m (£107m) in Series E funding, bringing the company’s valuation to US$1bn (£710m).
According to Rick Faulk, CEO of Locus Robotics, the latest funding round will be used to drive the digital transformation of fulfilment warehouses,
“Warehouses are facing ongoing labour shortages and exploding volumes, [they] are looking for flexible, intelligent automation to improve productivity and grow their operations,” said Faulk. “Locus is uniquely positioned to drive digital transformation in this enormous global market”
Locus AMRs currently serves more than 40 customers and 80 warehouses around the world. To date, the company’s LocusBots have picked more than 300 million units, including 70 million units during the recent holiday season.
As previously reported by Robotics & Innovation, Locus hit its 200 million units picked milestone in September at a Boots UK warehouse.
Ash Sharma, managing director at Interact Analysis, said: “Warehouses are massively under-penetrated today, but increasingly operators are seeing the huge benefits that warehouse robotics such as the Locus solution can bring.
“As a result, we expect that over a million warehouse robots will be installed over the next four years and the number of warehouses using them will grow ten-fold.”
The Series E investment round was led by Tiger Global Management and Bond and builds on support from existing investors including Scale Venture Partners and Prologis Ventures, the venture capital arm of Prologis.
