Wandelbots, which came out of Technical University of Dresden research, secured the funding as it publicly launched its robotics training software tool.
Wandelbots, a Germany-based robotics training technology producer using research from Technical University of Dresden, has raised $30m in a funding round led by venture capital firm 83North, TechCrunch reported yesterday.
Industrial technology manufacturer Siemens and software provider Microsoft took part in the round through respective subsidiaries Next47 and M12, and were joined by Atlantic Labs, EQT Ventures, Haniel, Paua Ventures and private investor Alexander Rinke, according to media reports.
Founded in 2017, Wandelbots has developed a machine learning tool called TracePen, which uses automated programming to enable regular users to teach industrial robots to carry out sophisticated, industry-specific tasks.
Wandelbots’ co-founder and CEO, Christian Piechnick told TechCrunch: “We enable manufacturers to use robots with an unseen flexibility and we dramatically lower the cost of using robots. Our product enables non-programmers to easily teach a robot new tasks and thus reduces the involvement of hard-to-find and costly programmers.”
TracePen was publicly launched today and leverages research from Technical University of Dresden’s Faculty of Computer Science. The company’s customers already included BMW, Volkwagen and Infineon, and the funding will go to TracePen’s commercialisation and global expansion efforts.
Paua Ventures and EQT Ventures joined unnamed existing investors to provide $6.8m in series A funding for Wandelbots in December 2018. It had collected an undisclosed amount of seed capital from TechCrunch at its Disrupt Battlefield contest the year before.
