Dexterity, a logistics robot spinout of Stanford, has emerged from stealth with series A funding and debt financing from Stanford-StartX Fund.

Dexterity, a US-based warehouse robot technology spinout of Stanford University, made its public debut on Tuesday with $56.2m in funding from investors including Stanford-StartX Fund, the venture unit of Stanford-aligned accelerator StartX. Presidio Ventures, a corporate venturing arm of conglomerate Sumitomo, is also among the investors, as are Pacific West Bank, Liquid 2 Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, B37 Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Obvious Ventures and Blackhorn Ventures. The amount includes at least series A capital and debt financing, but the spinout did not provide a breakdown of any funding rounds. Founded in 2017, Dexterity designs and builds robots tailor-made for specific warehouse clients to automate elements of goods picking and packing so that their human employees can focus on fewer rudimentary and repetitive tasks. The robots progressively learn to feel specific warehouse goods leveraging advanced haptic controls that emulate human coordination, enabling the execution of a wider range of tasks. Dexterity’s early client base includes transportation equipment and industrial goods producer Kawasaki Heavy Industries. The spinout claims its technology currently automates processing of 200 warehouse items, including plastic bags and perishable goods, at an estimated 99.5% accuracy. Samir Menon, chief executive of Dexterity, invented the technology during his Stanford postdoctoral research, co-advised by Oussama Khatii, professor in the Department of Computer Science  and director of the robotics lab, and Kwabena Boahen, principal investigator at the university’s Brains in Silicon unit.

Subscribe to go deeper

GCV subscribers get access to all our proprietary data and deep-dive articles, as well as the global directory of CVC investors.



Not sure if you have a subscription?