Massachusetts is a hardware state. It's the birthplace of Amazon Robotics, once known as Kiva Systems. The e-commerce giant has cemented the Bay State as the epicenter of its robotics operations: It just announced plans to open a new innovation hub in Westborough by 2021.
But at BostInno, we're less concerned with giants like Amazon than we are with the makers on the ground—the tiny but mighty startups that make Greater Boston's innovation ecosystem go 'round. To that end, we examined the hardware startups that are blazing a path forward for all their contemporaries. Some are securing major funding rounds from prominent venture capital firms. Another just opened a European headquarters. One had its product used on a robot-fighting TV series.
Read about the five on fire below.
DUST Identity: This startup uses the dust of diamonds—yes, diamonds—to create unique security tags for goods ranging from cars to cosmetics via nanotechnology. Originally conceived in the halls of MIT, DUST Identity launched from stealth less than a year ago with $2.3 million in seed funding led by Kleiner Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has backed such prominent names in the tech industry as Amazon, Google and Sun Microsystems. In July, it secured $10 million in a Series A round, also led by Kleiner Perkins, which it planned to use for product development, engineering, devising a go-to-market strategy and growing the customer base across industries. It has been accepted into the MIT Startup Exchange STEX25 program and partnered with SAP, and, this year, the company has doubled its headcount.
Embr Labs: In February, we put Embr Labs on our list of Makers to Watch this year. The MIT-born and Intel Capital-backed startup has built a bracelet that controls temperature by tricking your brain into feeling warmer or cooler. The device first gained traction in 2017 after its Kickstarter campaign more than tripled its goal in a little over 24 hours, raising almost $630,000. In January, Embr Labs announced a research collaboration with Johnson & Johnson to explore the efficacy of its thermal waveforms for conditions experienced by folks experiencing menopause. And just last week, it closed a $6 million Series B round led by DigiTx Partners with participation from Safar Partners, Joyance Partners, Bose Ventures and PBJ Capital.
Locus Robotics: The Wilmington-based startup was spun out of Quiet Logistics in 2015 after Amazon bought Kiva Systems. Since then, it’s only been making moves. In 2017, Locus announced that it was selling robots to DHL Supply Chain, the largest third-party logistics company in the world. Much more recently, in April, it raised $26 million in Series C funding. That money has gone toward several recently released upgrades and enhancements to its robotic hardware, navigation software, UX and management dashboards.
Realtime Robotics: Boston-based robotics startup Realtime Robotics graduated from MassRobotics’ accelerator late last year. Since then, the company, led by Duke University professors Dan Sorin and George Konidaris, has been working out of an office in Boston’s de facto startup neighborhood, Fort Point. Its focus these days is developing a specialized processor for generating safe robot motion plans in microseconds. In October 2017, Realtime Robotics closed a $2 million seed round from SPARX Group, Scrum Ventures and Toyota AI Ventures, the Toyota Research Institute’s venture capital arm. In April this year, it disclosed $7.6 million in funding to the SEC. Last month saw the closure of a $11.7 million Series A round led by SPARX Asset Management with participation from Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Hyundai Motor Company and OMRON Ventures, alongside existing investors Toyota AI Ventures, Scrum Ventures and the Duke Angel Network.
Markforged: One of Greater Boston’s preeminent 3D printing startups, Markforged closed an $82 million Series D round just in March. That’s on top of a $30 million Series C round in November 2017 from three major investors: Microsoft, Porsche and Siemens. This year, the company debuted “Blacksmith,” an AI-powered software that makes manufacturing machines “aware” of the parts they produce so they can automatically adjust programming, the company said. Markforged also opened its European headquarters in Dublin in April and, on top of its Watertown location, will open a 25,000-sq.-ft. production facility in Billerica next month. There’s time for fun, too: Four Markforged printers were used on this year’s season of “Battlebots,” a robot-fighting TV series on the Discovery Channel.
