SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Boston-based Southie Autonomy was named winner of the 2018 Pitchfire startup competition held here at the annual RoboBusiness conference. The company’s intelligent robot software platform makes robotic automation feasible for batched material handling applications of any size without specialized programming expertise.
Southie Autonomy was among five finalists in the competition, an annual event where the top robotics startups pitch to a panel of judges about their companies and product offerings. Pitchfire showcases innovation, creativity, and technological development and was sponsored by Toyota AI Ventures.
The 2018 Pitchfire winner earned a $5,000 cash prize, yearlong coverage on Robotics Business Review, and meetings with investors and industry insiders.

Gray Bright, CEO of Cloud Transportation Technologies, hosted the 2018 Pitchfire event.
Hosted by Gray Bright, CEO of Cloud Transportation Technologies, the Pitchfire event this year included a five-judge panel, including Bob Christopher, managing director at Panasonic; Ashish Aggarwal, special advisor at Grishin Robotics, Julian Counihan, partner at Schematic Ventures; Steve Goldberg, chief product officer at Alcatraz AI and operating partner at Venrock; and Noland Katter, an investment banker and associate with Beringer Finance, U.S.
Ubiquity Robotics, which is working on a ROS-based mobile platform that doesn’t use lidar, won second place in Pitchfire. Frontier Bio, which is working on 3D-printed human tissues, earned third place.
More coverage of the 2018 Pitchfire and other events at RoboBusiness will be coming soon.