HAI Robotics yesterday said it is celebrating its fifth anniversary at its new headquarters in Shenzhen, China, as the Hurun Research Institute ranked the company in this year's global unicorn ranking list. HAI Robotics makes autonomous case-handling robots, or ACRs, for warehouse order fulfillment.
“It’s an extraordinary journey for us to grow from the cradle of a small workshop into a company of more than 1,200 employees with five branch offices across the globe today,” said Richie Chen, the company’s founder and CEO. “We’re celebrating our fifth anniversary with gratitude to our customers and investors for their trust and confidence in our team. We’ll keep making innovative products and stay committed to bringing value to our partners.”
Founded in 2016, HAI Robotics has developed totes-to-person systems to improve warehouse operational efficiency, in contrast to the then-prevalent shelves-to-person materials handling systems of the time. The company claimed that its HAIPICK ACR system is the first of its kind.
HAI Robotics has more than 600 global patents for intellectual properties involving positioning, robot control, and warehouse management, and it has customers in more than 30 countries and regions.
HAI Robotics earns recognition
In addition to $15 million in Series B funding in March, HAI Robotics HAI Robotics raised more than $200 million in its Series C and D funding rounds this year. The company said it planned to use the investment to update its artificial intelligence and mobile robots, expand its global network, and optimize its supply chain management and staff.
Hurun Research Institute listed HAI Robotics along with 300 other Chinese startups that were valued at more than $1 billion (U.S.) as of November 2021. The institute also provided a list of 1,058 such “unicorns” globally.
In addition, Supply Chain Management Review, a sibling site to Robotics 24/7, named HAI Robotics the winner of the robotics category in the 2021 NextGen Supply Chain Solution Provider Awards.
HAIPICK designed for easy adoption
Automating a warehouse can be a huge project, noted HAI Robotics. Business operators' concerns can range from the time needed for deployment and the agility of refits to affordability and return on investment (ROI).
HAI Robotics said its team, 50% of which are engineers, kept user concerns in mind when fine-tuning the HAIPICK robots for wider applications and stricter storage requirements. The system underwent repeated tests and trials in a real warehouse environment for nearly two years before it was formally introduced into the market.
The company’s first project was successfully deployed in Best Logistics’ warehouse in August 2018, and it said its ACR solution swiftly secured footholds in factories and warehouses.
HAI Robotics claimed that HAIPICK allows greater space utilization and higher precision and efficiency than traditional goods-to-person systems, such as Kiva robots that move an entire rack. The company said its ACRs can boost a warehouse’s storage density by 80% to 400% and improve workers' picking speeds can by three to four times.
In addition, the HAIPICK robots, which use QR codes on the floor for navigation, can be deployed within one month with no altering of the interior structure of a warehouse, it said.
Customers that prefer smaller picking units than an entire rack or pallet when automating their warehouses have adopted the system because of its ease of deployment and flexibility, said HAI Robotics. The company said it has been running more than 300 projects globally in segments including e-commerce, third-party logistics (3PL), apparel, electronics, energy, manufacturing, and medicine.
To provide localized service overseas, HAI Robotics has partnered with dozens of global logistics and supply chain leaders, including LG CNS, MHS, Mujin, BPS, Savoye, Invar, and SSI Schaefer.
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