Nomagic sweeps off $22 million to turn manual warehouses into automated fulfilment centres

Fulfilment centres are seeking automation and hence, the money from VCs have been pouring into robotics companies for a while now. Last year more than $17 billion poured into VC-backed robotic startups, nearly triple the investment in 2020. This year is a little behind that pace, but the sector already has seen more than $5 billion flow to startups.

Joining the ranks, Polish developer of pick-and-place warehouse robots Nomagic has raised $22 million in funding to expand its business. The Series A round was led by Silicon Valley fund Khosla Ventures, Almaz Capital and the European Investment Bank. The other participants of the round included existing investors DN Capital, Capnamic Ventures and Manta Ray.

With the last funding round in February 2020, the total investment raised by the startup has reached over $30 million.

Founded in June 2017 by Kacper Nowicki, Marek Cygan, and Tristan d’Orgeval, the company’s technology was originally utilised to pick small consumer electronics and accessories, like phones and cables. Now, it works with a larger variety of items, like bagged apparel, and plans to continue expanding to more categories, like groceries. Its robotic solutions include justPick, a picking robot that works with AutoStore and Shuttle systems, and justInduct, a robot that is able to pick multi-SKU batches. The robotic arm picks an item from an unordered selection and packs it into place to turn manual warehouses into automated fulfillment centres.

The company claims its technology can pick for over 70% of SKUs, and can work autonomously for more than two hours.

The company’s portfolio of clients includes fashion, e-commerce and third-party logistics providers. It has also announced a tie up with Swiss e-commerce platform Brack.ch. The Amazon rival in Switzerland has adopted Nomagic’s picking solution to automate picking from its AutoStore system.