Unbox Robotics raises $28 Mn led by ICICI Venture

Supply chain robotics technology company Unbox Robotics has raised $28 million in a funding round comprising a mix of primary and secondary capital led by ICICI Venture, with participation from RedStartLabs, a subsidiary of Info Edge, F Prime, 3one4 Capital, Navam Capital, Force Ventures, and other existing investors.

The Pune based company had earlier secured $14.1 million from 3one4 Capital and other investors.

The proceeds will be used to expand its engineering team, accelerate product development, and grow its market presence across India and overseas markets. A portion of the secondary capital will also provide liquidity to employees through the company’s ESOP programme, Unbox Robotics said in a press release.

Co founded in 2019 by Pramod Ghadge and Shahid Memon, Unbox Robotics is a supply chain technology company that offers AI powered, software defined vertical robotic parcel sortation systems for ecommerce and logistics. Its systems use proprietary Swarm Intelligence to deliver space efficient automation, requiring 50 to 80 percent less area, while enabling three times productivity and capital efficient warehouse operations, particularly during peak demand.

Unbox Robotics primarily serves customers in the ecommerce, retail, and logistics sectors across India, Europe, and the US. The company has active deployments in Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium, and is in the process of closing a deal in Poland. In the US, it is preparing for its first large scale deployment with a third party logistics player. To date, it has deployed around 500 robots across warehouses globally.

According to the company, nearly 96 percent of its revenue over the past 12 months has come from Western markets, with India contributing about 4 percent. Unbox Robotics operates on both an upfront sales model and a Robot as a Service model, allowing customers to either purchase robots outright or opt for a subscription based service.

Beyond ecommerce and retail, the startup is also exploring opportunities in pharmaceutical manufacturing as a future growth area.

Other major players in the sector include CynLr, which focuses on visual object intelligence, General Autonomy, Manav, and Ati Motors, which develops humanoid style robots for industrial logistics.