Posted by New Delhi: Robotics startup Addverb Technologies said that Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has invested $132 million to become its largest shareholder.
With an investment of $132 million, Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Industries’ retail arm Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) will have over 55% stake in Addverb Technologies. That makes RIL the biggest investor in the robotics startup.
However, this isn’t any plain investment that most venture capitalists or large investors normally makes.
The investment comes on the basis of a strong client relationship and trust that Reliance Industries and Addverb Technologies has with each other over the past years.
“Reliance was already one of our esteemed clients with whom we had co-created and delivered highly automated warehouses for their Jio-Mart grocery business,” said Sangeet Kumar, CEO and Co-Founder, Addverb Technologies.
“The comfort level and the trust factor were already in place which led to this association,” added Kumar emphasizing the bond that has flourished into a strategic partnership.
“This strategic partnership will help us leverage 5G, battery technology through new energy initiatives, advances in material sciences (carbon fibre) to deliver more advanced and affordable robots,” added Kumar.
Certainly, Reliance Industries’ investment into Addverb Technologies has more than just financial aspects.
“This association will also provide us an opportunity to deploy robots at scale in omni-channel distribution centres across different segments like e-commerce, retail, grocery, fashion, pharma, digital and petrochemical,” explained Kumar.
Further,” With this round of funding we are planning to deploy our robots across hospitals and airports,” said Kumar.
Addverb had earlier raised around $11 million in Series A and pre-Series funding from Jalaj Dani, Co-Promoter of Asian Paints, making its total funding close to $143 million, since its inception in June 2016.
Prior to the inception of Addverb Technologies, Kumar had worked at Asian Paints and played a key role in the implementation of automation and robotics solutions. And that how’s Dani become one of the early investors in Kumar’s robotics startup.
This fresh funding from Reliance Industries will enable the startup’s expansion in Europe and US and help it to set up the biggest robotic manufacturing facility at a single location. This manufacturing facility will be completely automated and will propel India as a world leader in the robotic sector.
Addverb also has plans to start an innovation lab having bases in Europe, US and India to solve the complex problems in the field of Human-Robotic collaboration.
“Robotics is an evolving field and innovation is our core differentiator. We deploy 10% of our revenue on R&D which has played a pivotal role in helping us create an extensive product portfolio, which is unmatched across the world,” informed Kumar.
In June 2016, Sangeet Kumar, Prateek Jain, Bir Singh, Satish Kumar Shukla and Amit Kumar founded the robotics startup Addverb Technologies.
Based in Noida, Addverb Technologies is now running successfully in its 6th year of operations with 100% subsidiaries in Singapore, Netherlands and Australia.
It provides products across four verticals in the automation domain -Robotics, Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems, Picking and Software.
The robotics startup provides warehouse and factory automation products powered by Robotics, AI, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Computer Vision and IoT.
“Our extensive product portfolio covers the entire gamut of fixed and flexible automation solutions and has helped us to create some very unique and innovative solutions for the customers and allowed us to implement complex automation solutions in a short and smooth manner,” informed Kumar.
“This has opened up new markets for us. With growing urbanisation and the onset of Covid, companies are transforming supply chains across industries and robotics will play a critical role in making these supply chains more agile and flexible,” continued Kumar.
The robotics startup has deployed its robots to over 100 customers and streamlined the processes for many large companies across different industries like Retail, e-Commerce, Pharma, FMCG, Petrochemicals, 3PL etc. throughout the globe with its innovative products & solutions.
Reliance, Flipkart, HUL, Asian Paints, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, ITC, Marico are some of the major customers of Addverb Technologies for which it built highly automated warehouses.
Besides, serving marquee clients, Addverb has exported its robots to overseas customers in Australia, Singapore, the Philippines, Britain, Vietnam and more.
Addverb has the capacity to manufacture a variety of 10,000 robots in a year at its manufacturing facility “Bot-Valley” spread over 2.5 acres in Noida. It opened this manufacturing facility in March 2021.
With the new manufacturing facility in FY 2022-23, the startup will be able to increase its manufacturing to 50,000 robots in a year.