Grey Orange Robotics, a Gurgaon- and Singapore-based robotics startup that helps online retailers automate their warehouses, has raised an undisclosed sum in a Series A round of funding.
Livemint, citing “a person familiar with the deal,” is reporting the total raised to be at about $10 million (around Rs.60 crore).
The investment was led by Tiger Global and Blume Ventures, but there also were individual investors Alok Rawat, president of FG Wilson FZE, and Dileep Nath, co-founder of Kanbay, and a few others. As part of the deal, Nath will join the board of the company.
“This investment is a strong validation of Grey Orange’s disruptive technology,” says Dileep Nath.
Grey Orange, founded in 2009 by Birla Institute of Technology in Pilani (BITS) alumni Samay Kohli and Akash Gupta, will use the money for hiring, research & development (R&D), scaling up operations and international expansion.
Grey Orange founders Akash Gupta (left) and Samay Kohli with the Butler System
?We are in fact being quite selective in whom we decide to partner with, as we start manufacturing our next generation of robots. We will be starting off with installations in Singapore and some other international markets,? says Kohli, CEO of Grey Orange.
Related: India?s Logistics Industry Gets Robot Newcomers to Pick Orders
In 2010, Grey Orange received an investment of $500,000 from BITS Spark Angels, a network run by the alumni of BITS Pilani, and Blume Ventures. It is the first Indian robotics and artificial intelligence company to be get funded by global investors, according to The Economic Times.
“We want to grow fast or die trying,” Kohli tells The Economic Times. “Our ambition is to be a billion-dollar firm in next five years.”
Robots Replacing Humans in Warehouses
Grey Orange, which competes with RBR50 company Swisslog and Kiva Systems (bought by Amazon in 2012) builds robots for the global logistics industry that moves shelves stacked with various products to a floor assistant who scans a bar code to confirm the right items.
It has developed two products, the Butler System and the Sortation System. The flagship Butler System includes small robots that traverse on a grid across the warehouse floor to fetch racks of items to the packer, while the Sortation System is an automated sorting, scanning and weighing system.
Grey Orange Robotics Sortation System
?Supply chain efficiencies are going to be a pivotal factor for global trade and it?s exciting to support a company that?s looking at solving this problem,” says Sanjay Nath, managing partner at Blume Ventures. We are also glad to see they?re targeting a global industry pain point, from day one.”
Grey Orange’s clients include some of the largest names in e-commerce, including India?s largest e-commerce player, Flipkart.
