Over the past few years, I’ve asked countless people in the robotics space “What comes after warehouse/fulfillment?” This already popular category has become extremely popular during the pandemic, as online shopping has shifted from convenience to necessity.
Amazon has been leading the field for more than a decade with its in-house systems, while companies like Locus, 6 River Systems, and Fetch (now owned by and branded by Zebra) have partnered with major retailers. But the question “what’s next” is by no means a signal that the achievement’s time in the spotlight is over. Despite some slowdown in economy-fueled investment, it is a huge category that is getting bigger.
GreyOrange is headquartered about 20 miles north of Atlanta, on the outskirts of Roswell, Georgia, and was founded in 2011 — the year before the Amazon Kiva deal shook the industry. The company has secured a number of high-profile clients over the past decade, including Walmart Canada, Nike and Swedish fast fashion retailer H&M.
Image credits: Orange grey
The company hasn’t had much trouble fundraising either. GreyOrange announced a $140 million Series C in 2018, and today announced it has raised $135 million in Series D growth funding. Anthelion Capital led the round, which also included returning investments from Mithril, 3State Ventures, and Blume Ventures.
Over the years, I have built an integrated solution to meet your warehouse, fulfillment, and 3PL needs. This includes AMRs (autonomous mobile robots) similar to Kiva, forklifts and bin systems for pickup, along with its own first-party (“hardware-agnostic”) fleet management software.
CEO Akash Gupta noted that this round will be geared, in part, toward introducing the systems to customers.