Humanoids in Factories: Theker’s Revolutionary Approach to Automation
Humanoids aren’t quite ready to replace factory workers, but industry can’t wait. Faced with labor shortages, manufacturers are showing growing interest in startups that promise faster automation without the usual compromises.
Theker’s Vision: Beyond Single-Task Robotics
This is the bet of Theker, an AI robotics startup that aims to go beyond robots trained for a single task. “If you always have to put the same cookie in the same box, that works perfectly, but most processes aren’t like that,” co-founder Carla Gómez Cano told TechCrunch.
Adaptive Robotics for Complex Manufacturing
Theker is designed for this more complicated reality. Unlike humanoid robots designed around a fixed form – think Boston Dynamics – Theker’s machines are designed to be reconfigured. Their hands, arms, and overall shape can be swapped or resized depending on the task, whether it’s sorting packages, packing clothes, or handling bottles and cans in a warehouse.
Expanding Horizons: From Retail to Heavy Industry
The fact that Inditex, Zara’s parent company, was an early backer indicates where Theker’s ambitions begin, not where they end. The company’s broader goal is to move beyond retail into heavier industrial environments like manufacturing, where the complexity and scale of manual tasks is even greater.
Record-Breaking Funding and Ambitious Growth
This generalist ambition has helped cement Theker’s status as one of the European startups to watch – and raise capital accordingly. The Barcelona-based startup just raised $85 million in what it calls “the largest robotics Series A ever in Europe.” (We couldn’t find any larger ones in our archives either.)
Less than a year after a record funding round, this Series A was led by US venture capital firm CRV and backed by a mix of traditional and strategic investors, including Samsung and Aglaé Ventures, the investment vehicle linked to LVMH Chairman Bernard Arnault.
Strategic Partnerships and Market Penetration
Gómez Cano said Samsung was not yet a customer but the two were in advanced discussions. Theker would be happy to have the Korean company as both a customer, supplier, and investor – a trio that would give the startup both revenue and credibility in large-scale manufacturing.
She also noted that she and co-founder Jiaqiang Ye Zhu “didn’t build Theker to run pilots,” so the team skips innovation departments entirely and goes straight to logistics or operations, where deals are real and timelines are shorter.
Showcasing Potential and Scaling Up
To demonstrate that the company can actually achieve this, Theker has a showroom in central Barcelona and plans to open more as it expands across Europe, the United States, and Asia. The company will also increase its headcount in technology, deployment, and sales.
“We have already received 15,000 applications and we have to filter like crazy,” Gómez Cano said. She estimates that the team could grow from a few dozen to 120 people by the end of the year, then pulls herself together: “I said that, but I also said that we would raise 30 or 40 million dollars!”
Barcelona: A Hub for Robotics Innovation
The fact that Theker managed to double its target also reinforces the startup’s conviction to maintain its headquarters in Barcelona, a growing robotics hub, and more broadly in the European tech ecosystem. “It has never been an obstacle to acceleration for us, so we are making the most of it,” Gómez Cano said.
For more details on Theker’s innovative approach to automation, visit the source here.
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