Constance, Germany-based fruitcore robotics, a provider of industrial robotics and automation solutions, announced on Wednesday, December 14, that it has secured €23M in a Series B round of funding.
Capricorn Partners, KOMPAS, and XAI technologies participated in the round, along with existing investorsUVC Partners, Matterwave Ventures, CNB Capital, the family business Pecon, and the btov Private Investor Network.
The company says it will use the funds to accelerate product innovation, sales, marketing, and international expansion. The robotic company is active in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy.
“With the closing of our Series B financing, we are again a big step closer to our goal of making robotics and automation solutions accessible to the masses. We see the demand for high-quality and easy-to-use robots in the market is steadily increasing. Therefore, we will use the new capital primarily to serve the demand for our robotics and automation solutions as well as digital products in the European market,” says Jens Riegger, Managing Director (CEO) and co-founder of fruitcore robotics.
fruitcore robotics: What you need to know
Founded in 2017, fruitcore robotics specialises in developing, producing, and marketing easy-to-use “digital robots.”
“We are still at the beginning of the robots’ growth trajectory, especially in medium-sized businesses, and we are convinced that with our ‘digital robot’ HORST, we are one of the game changers and thus a driving force for the broad use of robots in the manufacturing industry. We would like to thank our investors for their trust in us,” says Patrick Heimburger, Managing Director (Chief Revenue Officer) and co-founder of fruitcore robotics.
The German deep-tech company aims to make robotic-based industrial automation accessible to SMEs without prior experience.
The company’s product portfolio includes:
- HORST “digital robots” – an intuitive horstFX software
- horstCOSMOS.com Industrial IoT platform
- Intelligent camera recognition functions.
fruitcore says the robots are made in Germany, from hardware to software. Additionally, the company also offers ready-made solutions and software packages for plug & play implementation of complete applications.
The company claims to automate hundreds of applications in 29 industries and has 60+ partner networks in the DACH region and Italy.
Josef Mardijan, Member of the Executive Board (CFO) of fruitcore robotics, adds, “In times of political and economic uncertainty, the current financing round with a significant volume of 23 million euros once again confirms the attractiveness of our business model, and not least the trust placed in our team, of which we are very proud.”
The company employs more than 100 people and says it will create “attractive” jobs at its Constance and Villingen sites through further growth.
Investors
Capricorn Partners is an independent European manager of venture capital and equity funds investing in innovative European companies where technology provides a competitive advantage.
Ke Zhang, Investment Director at Capricorn Partners, says, “Industrial automation is a strong long-term global trend, and fruitcore robotics is riding this trend by sharply focusing on enabling manufacturing companies of all types and sizes to address automation and increase efficiency. The products are well tailored to the market needs and are continuously evolving to adapt to the customer requirement. Combined with a passionate and focused management team with a proven track record of fast product development, go-to-market, and solid operational management, we have all the ingredients for a future winner. We look forward to supporting this promising innovator from Germany and working closely with its impressive management team to develop markets in and beyond Europe.”
KOMPAS is an early-stage venture capital firm that funds breakthrough innovations that accelerate the digital transformation and decarbonisation of the building and manufacturing industries.
The VC invests €1M to €5M from Seed to Series B rounds with continued support throughout the company’s entire lifecycle.
Andreas Strasser, Partner at KOMPAS, says, “Empowering businesses to make their manufacturing and supply chains more efficient and sustainable through automation will unlock huge benefits across industries. We believe in investing in the people and ideas that will accelerate the manufacturing industry’s digital transformation, which will help solve labour shortages, reduce waste, and myriad other benefits. In fruitcore robotics, we see exceptional founders who share our values. We are delighted to be involved in this funding round and look forward to supporting the team as the company scales up.”
UVC Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests specifically in technology-based startups in the Industrial Technologies, Enterprise Software, and Mobility sectors.
Benjamin Erhart, General Partner at UVC Partners and lead investor of fruitcore robotics, says, “fruitcore robotics addresses a major pain point of our economy: scalable automation in small and medium-sized manufacturing companies. This is a key to addressing the critical situation of delivery times, growing demand, and production again increasingly focused on Europe on time. All this must succeed without having automation specialists in the mass of companies. Since our initial investment in 2021, fruitcore’s team has proven that through incredibly deep software expertise – the majority of developers are software engineers – they have created an offering with the ‘digital robot’ that is perfectly tailored to the needs of mass customers.”
