Startup News: Robotic piece picking software provider OSARO lands additional funding

OSARO, a provider of machine learning software for industrial automation, has closed a Series B funding extension of $7.5 million, with participation from Darco Capital, The Mark Cuban Companies, King River Capital, Alpha Intelligence Capital, Founders Fund, Pegasus Tech Ventures, GiTV Fund, and existing investors, bringing total funding to $37 million from investors.

OSARO’s robotic piece-picking software has improved performance and efficiency in e-commerce order fulfillment and intralogistics for multiple customers, including material handling companies. OSARO focuses on industrial automation for the electronics, apparel, grocery, pharmaceutical, and other industries.

In comments about the B Series extension, Megan Guy, OSARO Board Member and Partner and Co-founder of King River Capital, stated that the global pandemic and its behavioral shifts have dramatically accelerated the rate of growth in e-commerce and logistics, thus driving the need for automation. “Warehouse automation technology is essential to scaling the capability of these supply chains to safely and efficiently meet society’s needs, and King River is proud to back OSARO as a leader of this transformation,” Guy said.

Mark Cuban of Mark Cuban Companies stated that speed and customer service are important trends OSARO addresses. “It’s more important than ever for retail and e-commerce companies to meet their end customers’ delivery expectations,” Cuban said. “Meeting the increasing demand for e-commerce being fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic is becoming more difficult than ever. During the past 12 months, I’ve been impressed with OSARO’s ability to meet this challenge. OSARO builds machine learning software for legacy and new robotic systems to automate picking and packing — through what was once considered the most labor-intensive and repetitive processes in the supply chain. Grocery, retail, and other e-commerce distribution centers can set up OSARO software in a quick and effortless integration at lower costs than we’ve ever seen. With OSARO, customers can get their products picked, packed, wrapped, and delivered faster than ever, with high satisfaction. In addition to their new product features and increased machine learning accuracy and automation, it was an easy decision to increase our investment in OSARO’s most recent Series B round.”

OSARO achieved significant milestones in 2020, which included a new OSARO subsidiary, OSARO GK, in Tokyo, grew its team by more than 20 percent adding 10 new engineers, and deploying 18 software systems, stated Derik Pridmore, co-founder and CEO of OSARO.