Seegrid Acquires Box Robotics

Seegrid Corp., a provider of self-driving industrial vehicles for material handling, today announced that it acquired Box Robotics, a mobile robotics startup bringing high-definition maps, three-dimensional lidar, and deep learning to the warehouse and manufacturing automation space.

According to Seegrid, the acquisition will help accelerate next-generation perception and more human-like, situational awareness technology to Seegrid’s vision-guided vehicles (VGVs), making manufacturing, distribution, and e-commerce fulfillment facilities even more productive as the demand for automation increases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Financial terms are not being disclosed.

The Philadelphia-based Box Robotics, led by the former Love Park Robotics principals Tom Panzarella and John Spletzer, focuses on 3D perception autonomy with human-like situational awareness for industrial robots.

“Seegrid and Box Robotics are perfectly aligned in our mission to bring full 3D situational awareness and predictability to our next-generation robots,” said Jim Rock, Seegrid’s Chief Executive Officer. “Tom and John are visionary leaders and experienced computer vision and robotics developers who uniquely and deeply understand the issues facing material handling automation. This strategic acquisition gives both Seegrid and our customers a competitive advantage by continuing to provide increased productivity and uncompromised safety, as well as accelerates the advancement of technologies needed to support today’s incredible demand for automation.”

Rock added, “Both Tom and John will be joining the Seegrid team. They will lead our perception engineering team and focus on adding best-in-class 3D situational awareness to Seegrid’s already industry-leading 3D vision-based navigation. This effort will ultimately increase efficiency and productivity while furthering Seegrid’s leading safety record that has reached 4 million miles at customer sites without a single personnel safety incident.”

“We are beyond excited to be a part of the Seegrid family and bring our technology to some of the world’s largest manufacturing and distribution brands already leveraging enormous returns with Seegrid’s vehicles,” said Tom Panzarella, Box Robotics Co-Founder. “This technology will enable Seegrid’s autonomous vehicles to gain an even more comprehensive understanding of the world, enabling them to be more productive and save customers time and money.”

Seegrid’s acquisition of Box Robotics comes on the heels of the company closing a $52 million growth equity financing round last month, bringing the company’s total funding to more than $150 million. Seegrid intends to use the additional capital to accelerate new product development and increase the size of its workforce as it continues to deliver best-in-class automation solutions for its customers.