Ottonomy.IO has announced the close of its seed funding round of $3.3 million, bringing its total funding to date to $4.9M. The funding round is led by pi Ventures back deep tech startups. Connetic Ventures and Branded Hospitality Ventures and the Founder & CEO of Addverb Technologies, Sangeet Kumar, also joined this round; making the group a dynamic mix of retail, food, and robotics industry investors for Ottonomy’s seed round.
Ottonomy.IO will use the capital to scale production and build capacity to address the current pipeline of customers, expand its team size and further strengthen its presence across North America, Europe, and the Middle East.
Before the coronavirus hit, robots were being tested in limited numbers across the world. However, the pandemic-driven growing preference for online delivery, the rising labor shortages, and emerging business models have accelerated their deployment. With a significant uptick in demand and regulations becoming standardized across the US, Ottonomy expects the need for robot deliveries to grow exponentially.
Founded in late 2020, by Ritukar Vijay, Pradyot Korupolu, Ashish Gupta and Hardik Sharma, Ottonomy.IO is one of the first robotics companies to develop robots that can navigate completely autonomously in both indoor and outdoor environments, without human assistance. These robots fuse data from 3D Lidar and cameras and use AI to have an understanding of the external world.
Using their High Information mapping of the serviceable delivery areas, the robots autonomously navigate to reach the consumer delivery locations. Once the delivery robot arrives at the doorstep, the customers use the unique QR code sent to them to unlock the hold area and retrieve their order. The robots can be remotely monitored and controlled whenever there is human intervention needed.
“Last mile delivery is the least productive, yet the most expensive part of the delivery chain. There is a strong need for automation, which Ottonomy fulfills with Ottobots,” says Roopan Aulakh, Managing Director, pi Ventures. “Ottobots are equipped with a sophisticated tech stack both at hardware and AI level. The founding team here brings years of multi-functional robotics experience, reflected in the world-class product that they have built and commercialized. We are very excited to make our first investment in robotics and couldn’t have asked for a better team to partner with. ”
Earlier this year, Ottonomy’s robots “Ottobots” became the world’s first autonomous robots to deliver food, beverage, and travel retail items at airports. Ottobot 2.0 evolved from early pilots to include fully customizable modular cabins, increased access for customers, and directional mobility, including crab mode.
“The team and I have been deeply vested in autonomous driving for more than a decade. We believe fully autonomous delivery robots are not only a precursor to autonomous vehicle proliferation but are solving today’s biggest challenges like – the labor shortage; enabling staff to do more with less,” says Co-founder and CEO, Ritukar Vijay. “Introducing 2.0, we are bringing best in class maneuverability, accessibility, and modularity to our fully autonomous robots; which sets us ahead of our competition.”
With strong customer validation and positive response from customers at Cincinnati International Airport (CVG), the company has started partnerships with multiple airports across the US and Europe. In addition to expanding its curbside and last-mile delivery technology advances, the company is involved with top Fortune 500 corporations in the retail and restaurants industry across North America for wide adoption. The award-winning robotics company has successfully completed pilots at the New lab 5G Studio in New York using Verizon’s 5G networks, making a huge leap in capability to deploy large fleets.