By Eugene Demaitre, The robot report | August 26, 2024

Numerous attendees met MassRobotics startups and partners at RoboSource earlier this month. Credit: Eugene Demaitre

BOSTON — One measure of success for a robotics cluster is how much funding its member companies obtain. MassRobotics this month announced that resident startups have raised more than $1 billion since its founding in 2017.

“This remarkable achievement underscores the vital role MassRobotics plays in accelerating robotics innovation, commercialization, and adoption of advanced technologies,” stated the organization.

“More than 290 investors have backed about 82 resident startups,” said Tom Ryden, executive director of MassRobotics. He spoke with The Robot Report during the recent RoboSource showcase and networking event at the Venture Café in Cambridge, Mass.

“We’re proud of all the companies, whether they’ve raised $2 million or $100 million,” Ryden said. “Many of them have moved on from our co-working space and continue to grow. It’s not about being at MassRobotics; these companies add value to the entire ecosystem.”

MassRobotics startups find success across sectors

The startups in Massachusetts’ robotics ecosystem support a range of industries, particularly in manufacturing, defense, and logistics. MassRobotics provides the companies with space and mentoring, as well as opportunities to network with academia, industry partners, and investors.

Examples include Marlborough, Mass.-based American Robotics, which built commercial drones and was acquired by Ondas Holdings for $70.6 million in 2021. Watertown, Mass.-based Tutor Intelligence has raised $4.2 million pre-seed to engineer artificial intelligence and collaborative robots for packaging.

SparkCharge, which has developed systems for electric and autonomous vehicle charging, raised $23 million in a May 2022 Series A round, for a total of $67 million in funding to date. Boston-based Activ Surgical Inc. has raised a total of more than $100 million, according to MassRobotics.

MassRobotics startups aren’t limited to New England. Shanghai-based XYZ Robotics has raised $103 million, including a $20 million Series A+ round, for vision-guided picking systems.

An industry breakdown of the $1 billion invested in MassRobotics startups. Source: MassRobotics

Realtime Robotics gets help ramping up 

In May 2024, Realtime Robotics received Series B funding led by Mitsubishi Electric Corp., bringing its total to $71.5 million. Boston-based Realtime is creating runtime technologies to optimize collision-free motion planning for multiple robot arms in a single workcell.

MassRobotics has helped the company from the beginning, noted Peter Howard, co-founder, president, and CEO of Realtime Robotics. He had researched a variety of locations before choosing Boston.

“It was apparent to us in 2017 that Silicon Valley was busy with autonomous vehicles, and competition for new graduates or moderately experienced people was vicious,” he told The Robot Report. “Pittsburgh didn’t have the infrastructure or scope of roboticists that Boston had. Here, there was already a thriving community, thanks to Amazon Robotics, iRobot, and good universities graduating people who were more conservative about job hopping.”

“MERL [Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratory] was already a corporate sponsor when we decided to set up at MassRobotics in May 2017,” Howard recalled. “It helped put up $50,000 in initial funding, and the resources here meant we didn’t have to spend a penny on hardware infrastructure so we could focus on what we were trying to create.”

The following year, Realtime Robotics had just set up a demonstration workcell with two robots picking and placing into two bins when Mitsubishi came to visit.

“Joyce [Sidopoulos, co-founder and chief of operations at MassRobotics] brought over the visitors, who happened to be the head of Mitsubishi’s factory automation team and the CTO of its robotics business unit,” Howard said. “They thought it was canned, with pre-known locations. We said, ‘You go ahead and move the robot,’ and then you could see his jaw drop. That was the beginning of our relationship.”

Ori Living gets space to collaborate and grow

Hasier Larrea, founder and CEO of Ori Inc., had a similar experience as his company developed and commercialized its robotic furniture for space-constrained residences.

“MassRobotics was great in the early stages, helping us connect with angel investors and some strategics,” he said. “We’re probably the oldest resident. It’s also helpful to be surrounded by companies at similar stages.”

“When we launched out of MIT in 2015, the first few years was about perfecting the technology, making sure it would work as we envisioned, reliably and safely, and that it could be manufactured at scale,” said Larrea. “We’ve now delivered about 1,500 apartments to date, from New York City to Fort Worth [Texas] and Los Angeles.”

Ori still has about 15 staffers at MassRobotics, where it builds and tests all its products and manages its supply chain. The company has raised more than $50 million and opened a business-development office in Brooklyn, N.Y.

“I always tell young entrepreneurs that they should fall in love with the problems that they’re driven to solve, rather than start a company for the wrong reasons,” Larrea said. “What I like about MassRobotics is that its community of people in close proximity maximizes the metaphorical collisions to spark innovation.”

More than 85 companies are current residents at MassRobotics’ headquarters, and interested startups can can apply.

MassRobotics works with robotics and AI startups around the world. Source: MassRobotics

See MassRobotics at events including RoboBusiness 

MassRobotics hosts and participates in events for education and training, investing, and connecting engineers with industry. Its activities include the Healthcare Robotics Startup Catalyst and the MassRobotics Accelerator.

On Sept. 27, the organization is hosting a Robotics and AI Technical Career Fair. The next day, it will hold its seventh annual RoboBoston “robot block party” for the general public in Boston’s Seaport District.

At RoboBusiness 2024, which will be on Oct. 16 and 17 in Santa Clara, Calif., Sidopoulos will lead the Women in Robotics Lunch and Part 1 of the Robotics Startup Bootcamp. Marita McGinn, director of the MassRobotics Accelerator program, will lead Part 2 of the Robotics Startup Bootcamp.

Members of MassRobotics such as Harmonic Drive and Opteran will be among the exhibitors. Jack Pearson, commercial director at Opteran, an RBR50 honoree, will also be among the speakers at RoboBusiness.

MassRobotics is a strategic partner of WTWH Media, which produces The Robot Report, Automated Warehouse, RoboBusiness, and the Robotics Summit & Expo.