Calling all roboticists: A new startup accelerator designed to help grow the region's robotics scene has announced the opening date for when it will begin accepting applications for its inaugural cohort.
The Robotics Factory, an initiative led by Pittsburgh-based Innovations Works Inc. (IW) and in partnership with the Pittsburgh Robotics Network (PRN) as well as other regional partners, will start taking applications for the accelerator program on Feb. 1.
Mike Formica, managing director of IW's hardware-based startup accelerator program AlphaLab Gear, said he expects the Robotics Factory to sign a lease on a space imminently after looking at over 40 possible locations throughout the region. It'll ideally contain up to 30,000 square feet and will most likely be located in Oakland or Lawrenceville.
The Robotics Factory is an initiative that's being made possible as a result of the region's $62.7 million Build Back Better Regional Challenge grant award from the U.S. Economic Development Administration. IW received a $12 million allotment out of the total grant awarded to build out the facility, which will comprise three pillars: Create, Accelerate and Scale.
With the Create program, the Robotics Factory will look to work directly with entrepreneurs, industry experts and researchers to define existing and emerging problems in the robotics startup community so that the Robotics Factory can address and solve these obstacles directly. IW and the PRN will host free workshops out of the Robotics Factory throughout the year to better identify these problems.
The seven-month-long Accelerate program will offer spots for up to six preseed funding stage robotics startups, which will have the opportunity to receive an investment of up to $100,000 from IW as well as mentorship and resources to help grow the company. Much like IW's AlphaLab Gear accelerator, these startups will move into the Robotics Factory's future co-working space. The startups will also have access to manufacturing and robotics resources that includes a production-grade machine prototype shop and a robot lab, among other amenities.
And then with the Scale program, the Robotics Factory is looking to offer expertise in product prototype development so startups can make production-ready products from the onset of development. According to Formica, a common obstacle hardware-based startups face is that their prototypes have to be redesigned multiple times before they can be mass-produced as final products. Ensuring these products are scaleable for different types of production equipment from the beginning will be a major component of this portion of the program, Formica said, while noting that local manufacturers will also benefit from the creation of the Robotics Factory.
"When [these startups] get that order for 5,000 [robots], they can turn the crank and immediately engage manufacturers in the local region; the circuit board houses locally, the machine shops locally, the injection molding [companies]," Formica said. "That is how we're going to be driving opportunity that's not just going to be based on the researchers creating a company, but when they're going to production, they're going to be energizing the entire local manufacturing [industry] and using them to provide that product for them, which will create jobs there."
More information on the application process can be found on the Robotics Factory's website.
