Osaro raises $16 million to make warehouse robots smarter with AI

Osaro, a San Francisco startup developing AI-based solutions for industrial robots, today announced that it's closed a $16 million series B funding round led by King River Capital (KRC), with participation from Alpha Intelligence Capital, Founders Fund, Fenox Venture Capital, GiTV Fund, and existing and strategic investors. It brings the startup's total raised to $29.3 million coming after a $10 million series A in April 2017, which cofounder and CEO Derik Pridmore said will bolster Osaro's hiring, international deployment, and R&D efforts. Alongside the funding round, Osaro revealed that Applied Digital Access, Mahi Networks, and Calix vereran Kevin Pope has joined as VP of engineering. "A key element of our competitive advantage is Osaro's … deep learning algorithms," said Pridmore, an MIT computer science and electrical engineering graduate who cofounded Osaro in 2015 with a team hailing from UC Berkeley, Stanford, and the University of Massachusetts. "These algorithms generalize picking tasks with minimal training data and no SKU registration for quick, scalable solutions. In addition, as a software company, we support a wide array of commodity hardware and robotic arms which lets our customers select options that best fit their needs."