Robotics companies raised $1.8B in September 2023

The Robot Report tracked 50 funding rounds in September 2023, bringing the year-to-date funding total to nearly $11 billion.

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Robotics investment for the month of September 2023 totaled $1.84 billion, the result of 50 investments (See Table 1 below or download Table 1 here). Total funding for the months of January 2023 through September 2023 equals approximately $10.7 billion. Funding was $851 million in August 2023 and nearly $2 billion in July 2023.

Companies located in the USA, China and Israel received the most rounds and the most funding amounts, dwarfing other countries (Figure 1, below). Companies based in the USA received the majority of the rounds (23), which resulted in a total funding inflow of $537 million. Firms based in China attracted $141 million in funding (coming from 17 investments), while four investments in Israeli companies accounted for $94M in investment.

The types of businesses and their offerings varied widely among the funded companies. As usual, companies offering robotic surgical systems and enabling technologies attracted sizable rounds. CMR Surgical ($164 million) and Virtual Incision ($30 million) serve as examples.

Also consistent with 2023 funding trends, providers of self-driving software and hardware solutions for autonomous transportation, also received substantial funding. Stack AV ($1 billion), Kodiak Robotics ($75 million), FERNRIDE ($19 million) and AutoCore ($10 million), exemplify.

Companies offering unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), usually coupled with drone-enabled data and analytics services, continue to receive sizable funding rounds. These providers typically focus on surveying and inspection applications for their offerings, with construction, agriculture, utilities and energy sectors as the target markets. Suppliers offering solutions to the defense and security sectors also attracted funding. Examples include AeroVironment ($109M), Treeswift ($11M), Shield AI ($150M) and Perceptual Robotics ($3M).

Figure 1: September 2023 Robotics Investment by Country

For both the total number of investments and the total amount of investment, most funding fell under the aegis of ‘Other’, a catchall descriptor for investments that do not include the typical stages of funding that businesses go through before their initial public offering (ex. Seed rounds followed by Series A, B, C, D and E funding). A single Series D round (CMR Surgical, $164M) accounted for approximately 9% of September 2023’s funding totals.

Figure 2: September 2023 Robotics Funding Amounts by Investment Type

Figure 3: September 2023 Robotics Funding Amounts by Investment Number and Amounts

Table 1: September 2023 Robotics Funding and Investment

Editor’s note: What defines robotics investments? The answer to this simple question is central in any attempt to quantify them with some degree of rigor. To make investment analyses consistent, repeatable, and valuable, it is critical to wring out as much subjectivity as possible during the evaluation process. This begins with a definition of terms and a description of assumptions.

Investors and Investing
Investment should come from venture capital firms, corporate investment groups, angel investors, and other sources. Friends-and-family investments, government/non-governmental agency grants, and crowd-sourced funding are excluded.

Robotics and Intelligent Systems Companies
Robotics companies must generate or expect to generate revenue from the production of robotics products (that sense, analyze, and act in the physical world), hardware or software subsystems and enabling technologies for robots, or services supporting robotics devices. For this analysis, autonomous vehicles (including technologies that support autonomous driving) and drones are considered robots, while 3D printers, CNC systems, and various types of “hard” automation are not.

Companies that are “robotic” in name only, or use the term “robot” to describe products and services that do not enable or support devices acting in the physical world, are excluded. For example, this includes “software robots” and robotic process automation. Many firms have multiple locations in different countries. Company locations given in the analysis are based on the publicly listed headquarters in legal documents, press releases, etc.

Verification
Funding information is collected from a number of public and private sources. These include press releases from corporations and investment groups, corporate briefings, market research firms, and association and industry publications. In addition, information comes from sessions at conferences and seminars, as well as during private interviews with industry representatives, investors, and others. Unverifiable investments are excluded and estimates are made where investment amounts are not provided or are unclear.

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