Soft Robotics picks corporates to raise $20m

Soft Robotics, a US-based industrial robot technology developer spun out from Harvard University, secured $20m on Wednesday in a funding round that included engine and automotive manufacturer Yamaha Motor.

Early-stage investment firm Hyperplane Venture Capital led the round, which also featured Scale Venture Partners, Calibrate Ventures, Material Impact and Haiyin Capital.

Aerospace and appliance maker Honeywell, conglomerate Tefken, power and automation equipment maker ABB and food producer Taylor Farms invested through Honeywell Ventures, Tekfen Ventures, ABB Technology Ventures and Taylor Farms Ventures respectively.

Soft Robotics develops and builds soft robotic automation systems capable of holding and manipulating differently sized and shaped objects. The technology has applications in industries such as advanced manufacturing, food and beverages and e-commerce.

The spinout emerged out of Harvard University’s Whitesides Research Group, headed by Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor George Whitesides.

Rory O’Driscoll from Scale Venture Partners and Kevin Dunlap from Calibrate Ventures will join the board of directors.

Soft Robotics previously raised $4.5m in a 2015 round led by Material Impact Fund and backed by Haiyin Capital and Taylor Farm Ventures, according to Fortune.

Grant Allen, ABB’s head of ventures, said: “We saw early on that the Soft Robotics solution is a paradigm shift in the way our machines interact with their environment, especially in their ability to grasp deformable, delicate, binned or otherwise complex items.

“As a leader in industrial manipulation with over 300,000 robots deployed, ABB sees a huge number of amplifying automation solutions but the intuitive control software Soft Robotics has created combined with their agile gripper is a linchpin of the automated warehouse.”

– A version of this article first appeared on our sister site, Global Corporate Venturing.