Over the past few years, I’ve asked countless people in the robotics industry, “What’s next for warehousing/distribution?” An already popular category got even hotter during the pandemic, as online shopping went from a convenience to a necessity.
While Amazon has led the field with in-house systems for more than a decade, companies like Locus, 6 River Systems, and Fetch (now owned and branded by Zebra) are partnering with top retailers. are tied. But the question “What’s next?” by no means signals the end of the spotlight on fulfillment. Despite the economic slowdown in investment, this is a huge category and it’s only getting bigger.
GreyOrange was founded in 2011 and is headquartered outside Roswell, Georgia, about 20 miles north of Atlanta. This was the year before his Kiva deal with Amazon shocked the industry. Over the past decade, the company has acquired a number of high-profile clients, including Walmart Canada, Nike and Swedish fast-fashion retailer H&M.
Image credits: gray orange
The company does not have any major problems in raising funds. GreyOrange announced a $140 million Series C in 2018 and today announced that it has raised $135 million in Series D growth funding. Anthelion Capital led the round, with return investment from Mithril, 3State Ventures, and Blume Ventures.
The company has been working for years to build full-stack solutions for warehousing, fulfillment, and 3PL needs. This includes his AMR (autonomous mobile robots), forklift and box picking systems like Kiva, as well as proprietary first-party (“hardware agnostic”) fleet management software.
CEO Akash Gupta said the round will be partially directed toward delivering the system to customers.