Download - Robots on Wall street - Show Me the Money
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Private Investing in RoboticsOpportunities for Advanced Robotics and Intelligent Systems
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Background and ContextHardware and Software Enabling Technologies • 15 years investing $200M in early-stage enabling technologies for institutional
investors in IT, Communications. Invested in hardware, software, and services
Robotics Research• 3 years visiting robotics research labs, incumbent OEMs, startups, systems
integrators and customers• Observed enormous requirements gap between structured and unstructured
environments, and the new capabilities implied by new enabling technologies
Strategic Robotics Fund:• $100M fund combining elements of traditional and corporate venture investing,
focused on next-generation robotics and enabling technologies that address unstructured environments
• Approach: Hybrid fund structure leverages strengths of both traditional and corporate venture investing
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Opportunity
• Advance robotics and intelligent systems can address new markets that haven’t benefited from traditional robotic automation because of unstructured operating environments
• The operating environments are characterized by dynamic physical and business environments. Systems must be situationally aware, adaptable.
• New enabling technologies will allow advanced robotics to take on these unstructured environments
• Many of these innovations will also benefit traditional robotics applications (i.e., “backwards compatible”)
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Dynamic Innovation in Each Key Capability of Traditional Robotics
Sense Think
Act Collaborate / Cooperate
• Better, cheaper sensors (e.g. Kinect, flash LIDAR) and processors
• More sensor types, better signal processing and advances in sensor fusion
• Cognitive robotics can tackle unstructured situations without prior programming
• Shifting to Cloud Computing frees up processor, minimizes size, power and weight
• New manipulators and soft materials offer greater versatility
• Micro-robots collectively building macro-scale objects
• Ubiquitous comms allow robust realtime cooperation
• Emergent collaborative behaviors from swarms of robots
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Retail / Supply Chain Kiva Systems autonomous robots deliver
inventory to workers instead of the reverse
Acquired by Amazon for $775M in 2012
Agriculture New startups include 3D Robotics, Harvest
Automation, Blue River Technologies
Agriculture to be $16B market by 2020
Transportation Autonomous vehicles will deliver powerful benefits for safety, efficiency, and to the
environment
Industrial / Manufacturing Adaptive morphologies (like this snake bot)
allow automation of workflow that previously required human attention
Intelligent Systems Address Needs in Unstructured Environments Traditional and New Markets
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Traditional Automation vs. Intelligent Systems
Traditional automation has been responsible for great improvements in manufacturing but it has stark limitations that curtail its addressable markets.
Automation is … but also Intelligent Systems are
• fast• precise• predictable• able to do one task, or set
of tasks, extremely well• good at tasks that are
“dull, dirty, or dangerous” … as long as they take place in structured environments
• immobile• largely unaware of its
environments• unable to easily react to
changes in its environment
• not functionally versatile• unable to work near
humans• largely unable to
collaborate with humans
• often mobile• functionally versatile • able to learn • able to work safely with
humans• able to communicate and
cooperate with each other• able to adapt to changing
physical environments• able to adapt to changing
business environments
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New Applications and Markets• Energy
• Improved sensing• Inspect/survey• production automation
• Healthcare• surgical and logistics• pharmacy• rehabilitative• devices and diagnostics
• Logistics• assistive exoskeletons• palletize/depalletize, pick/pack• delivery
• Agriculture • data collection• watering / pruning / weeding • pest reduction
• Construction• assistive exoskeletons• layout marking• precision fabrication• contour crafting
• Facilities maintenance• inventory• cleaning• security
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Favorable Macro Trends: Rising Labor Costs, Falling Robot Unit Costs
• Favorable demographics• Aging populations mean
fewer workers• Rising incomes mean remaining
workers less willing to do dull, dangerous, dirty work — and demand more for doing it
• Robotics: increasing functionality, decreasing cost • Robotic componentry riding
favorable cost curves• Software enabling greater
capability• Short-lifecycle products require production lines that deliver high quality, accuracy,
consistency but are also highly adaptable
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Favorable Macro Trends: Large Players From Outside Robotics Making First Moves
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Private Investing in Robotics: Opportunities for Advanced Robotics and Intelligent Systems
Randy CastlemanManaging PartnerStrategic Robotics [email protected]