The Robotics Factory accepted five companies to its second accelerate cohort. Previous participants have gone on to raise millions of dollars in seed funding.
ForSight Assistive Devices, HeadStrait Labs, Humotech, Journey Robotics and the Reclamation Factory will all receive up to $100,000 in investment, six months of structured programing, access to industry experts and 12 months of office space at the Robotics Factory's Lawrenceville facility.
"Programs like this are really making robotics entrepreneurship accessible to people like me," Georgia Crowther, founder of robotic recycling company the Reclamation Project, said. "The reason that I started this company is because it is about a problem that I'm really passionate about. I don't have a ton of seed money to put into this yet or a bunch of friends who are willing to quit their jobs to do this with me for free, and I think without programs like the Robotics Factory I wouldn't be able to do something like this."
Crowther, a robotics engineer, founded the Reclamation Project in her basement. She said that this program will allow her to focus more of her time on engineering and improve the now three person company's network. She said that "having access to all of these people who are experts in their field" will "be a huge help."
The Robotics Factory, which is backed by Innovation Works and the Pittsburgh Robotics Network, launched the accelerate program last year. Previous participants CellX Technologies went on to raise a $6 million seed round and Voaige raised a $2 million pre-seed.
"When we were spinning out in 2015 the robotics factory didn't exist yet, and I wish it did," Josh Caputo, CEO of wearable robotics company and 2024 participant Humotech, said. "It just provides a really good environment to work with mentors and peer companies to figure things out. We probably heard about the robotics factory from ten different sources, its just a really essential new program for the ecosystem."
Humotech COO Candice Caputo said that the program goes hand in hand with Pittsburgh's rise as a tech hub.
"We travel quite a bit for work, visiting customers around the US and even talking to customers abroad," Candice Caputo said. "Lately, at least in the last half of the year, when I'm out and about representing Humotech, we hear a lot about Pittsburgh being a robotics tech hub and that's something that's echoed a lot. I do think that there's more of a spotlight on our region, which is really exciting."
