Flink Robotics, a spin-off from Swiss university ETH Zurich, receives 150,000 Swiss francs (converted Sun 161,073 euros) in funding from Venture Kick. The company plans to use the money to bring its product to market and attract its first customers.
Industrial robots are widely found in factory environments. For less structured environments, however, robots are as yet less suitable; here, many tasks still take place by hand. Think of packing, sorting or just unpacking goods.
Plug-and-play workers
Flink Robotics wants to change this. It wants to turn robots into easily adaptable and 'plug-and-play' workers that can perform a wide range of dynamic tasks around handling goods. The robots should be able to be installed in an existing environment in just a few minutes, without having to adapt the environment to the robots.
Central to this is FlinkAutonomy. This is software developed by Flink Robotics that enables the robots to notice and respond to changes in their environment. The software also enables the robots to cooperate with each other and perform certain tasks together.
The company is initially targeting parcel delivery and packaging industries. Both sectors have severe labour shortages, making robots an interesting alternative.
Accelerate go-to-market
The converted over 161,000 euros received by Flink Robotics from Venture Kick plans to use the AI startup to accelerate its go-to-market strategy, as well as carry out additional pilot projects.
Launched in 2007, Venture Kick aims to increase the number of spin-offs originating from Swiss universities, speed up their time-to-market and make such young companies more attractive to investors. Venture Kick specifically targets promising companies with a unique approach and programme.
Spin-off
Flink Robotics is a spin-off of the Computational Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich and affiliated to the ETH AI Centre. The company was founded by Dr Moritz Geilinger (CEO), Simon Huber (CTO) and professor Dr Stelian Coros (CSO).
"The support from Venture Kick is a recognition of our work and potential to transform the robot automation industry," says Geilinger. "The funding was crucial in launching our company, providing the necessary resources to secure our first customers and develop the first version of our product."
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Image: Rudy and Peter Skitterians via Pixabay
