Pickle Robot, a startup that develops systems for automating the unloading of trucks, has begun live implementation pilots of its bots at customer sites across Los Angeles after a recent Series A funding round.
According to the company, these demonstrations have seen tens of thousands of packages unloaded per month.
What’s more, the company has also raised US$26m (£21.8m) in a Series A funding led by equity firms Ranpak, JS Capital, Schusterman Family Investments, Catapult Ventures and Soros Capital.
Pickle Robot also claims to have added a series of industry veterans to its leadership team to accelerate the expansion of its robotic unloading systems.
The robot company’s key focuses are warehouse challenges using industrial robots and developing solutions built on core AI software, computer vision and advanced sensors.
It especially hopes to build automated systems that are capable of taking on the most labour-intensive, physically demanding and high-turnover part of logistics operations, which it believes is truck unloading.
Consumer goods company United Exchange has been announced as an early customer using the Pickle Robot Unload System.
Tom Blaylock, director of operations at United Exchange Corporation, said: “Pickle robots really do unload trucks, or in our case ocean freight containers.
“Pickle has been a great partner to work with.
“We’ve seen their technology improve month-over-month handling our varied product types and package sizes, plus their team works closely with our staff on site to make sure the daily work gets done on time to quality standards.”
Omar Asali, chairman and CEO of product packaging Ranpak, who now sits on Pickle Robot’s board of directors, said: “Following this Series A investment round, the company has raised a total of nearly US$32m (£26.8m) to date.
“Unloading freight from trucks and containers is a difficult, sometimes dangerous, and always tedious task that is performed in thousands of locations every day.
“Operators around the globe are having difficulty filling positions to do this type of work, and Pickle is delivering a real robotic unload system that can help fill the labor gap plaguing the logistics industry.”
At UEC’s distribution site in southern California, the Pickle Robot Unload System has reportedly been unloading ocean freight containers alongside UEC staff, who traditionally use manual processes to handle trailers at the facility.
