Locus Robotics raises $25 million for warehouse RaaS

Locus Robotics, a Wilmington, MA-based startup, raised $25 million in a Series B funding led by Silicon Valley Scale Venture Partners, with additional participation from existing investors. Locus plans to use the funds to expand into international markets and build up its growing subscription-based robot fleet. Locus business model uses Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) which allows customers to use Locus' solutions without a large-scale capital investment. The story of how Locus came to be is almost as interesting as why their mobile robots and RaaS business mode are getting so much attention and acceptance. In March 2012, in an effort to make their distribution centers (DCs) as efficient as possible, Amazon acquired Kiva Systems for $775 million and almost immediately took them in-house.