Dexterity Obtains $140M in Series B Funding for Supply Chain Robotics

Dexterity Inc. today announced that it has raised an additional $140 million in Series B equity funding and debt. The Redwood City, Calif.-based company has created robots for logistics, warehouses, and supply chain customers.

“Customers in retail, consumer goods manufacturing, and parcel handling need robots to scale quickly in order to manage the ever-increasing volume and variety of packages moving through their distribution centers,” said Samir Menon, CEO of Dexterity. “Dexterity is grateful to be at the forefront of delivering intelligent robotic systems in production across existing customer sites with the goal of rapidly transforming their warehouse operations.”

Dexterity said its software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings give robots the vision, touch, and human-like skill and speed to handle unstructured piles of goods. The company said it addresses labor shortages by delegating repetitive tasks -- such as sortation, palletizing, and fulfillment -- so employees can focus on higher-level, cognitive work.

Systems designed to grasp challenging items

Dexterity claimed that its intelligent robotics approach has enabled logistics providers to automate some of the most complicated tasks in the warehouse without needing to modify their existing setups. The startup said its systems can grasp challenging items in any warehouse without requiring expensive and bulky auxiliary infrastructure.

In addition, Dexterity said its robots can function in unpredictable environments such as parcel singulation with jammed chutes or at the end of multi-SKU pallet building conveyors without a look-ahead.

In an industry first, Dexterity said its robots have handled more than 50,000 SKUs, ranging from loosely packed deformable polybags to delicate hot-dog buns, floppy tortillas, and poorly sealed cardboard boxes. Its systems have also handled bags of earthworms, trays and crates of consumer food, and even a molten birthday cake.

Dexterity said its fleet of installed robots have moved over 14 million items in production at its customers’ sites over the past two years. The company said its full-stack approach includes software, hardware design and integration, and deployment. The systems come with 24/7 support and a performance guarantee for customers as they scale up.

Source: Dexterity

Dexterity valued at $1.4B, makes key hires

Existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Kleiner Perkins expanded their commitment to Dexterity by leading its Series B round. Obvious Ventures, B37 Ventures, and Presidio Ventures also participated. The latest funding raises Dexterity’s total capitalization to over $200 million at a valuation of $1.4 billion.

The company said it will use the new capital to support its growth as its first 1,000 robots are deployed into production.

In addition, Dexterity has made additions to the commercial side of its Stanford-originated engineering team. Jason Barton from Realtime Robotics and Rethink Robotics has joined the company as vice president of partnerships.

Jonathan Briggs joined Dexterity as vice president of 3PL (third-party logistics) and parcel delivery sales after years at both Quiet Logistics and DHL.

Dexterity has also hired Michael Perry from Boston Dynamics and DJI as its first vice president of marketing. Cliff Kalinowski joined as head of service operations from Mainspring Energy, and Andrew Heck from Morgan Stanley has become head of strategic finance. Sumit Chopra, new head of software support, came from Cisco and Amazon Web Services.

Dexterity is currently working with customers across North America and Japan.