Locus Robotics said its autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) have now surpassed one billion picks. The company's billionth pick was made at a home improvement retailer warehouse in Florida, where a LocusBot picked a cordless rotary tool kit. Just milliseconds after the billionth pick, another LocusBot picked a scented candle from a home goods warehouse in Ohio, and a running jacket from a global fitness and shoe brand in Pennsylvania. The company completed its billionth pick just 59 days after hitting its 900 millionth unit picked. For comparison, it took Locus 1,542 days to pick its first 100 million units.

June 2020 is off to a hot start for developers of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). Yesterday, OTTO Motors announced a $29 million Series C, and today Locus Robotics closed $40 million in Series D funding. The Series D brings Locus' total amount of funding raised to $105 million. Locus' latest round was led by Zebra Ventures, the strategic investment arm of Zebra Technologies. Existing investors such as Scale Venture Partners also participated in the round.

Anyone who has ever worked as part of a team (which, in today's hyperconnected world, is virtually everyone) will know that things work better when people talk with one another. This way knowledge gets shared, collaborations become possible, and individual successes or mistakes are collectively learned from. Why would you think that things would be any different in the world of robotics? That's exactly what the folks at Locus Robotics have been proving with a major new software update for their factory robot LocusBots. LocusBots are autonomous warehouse robots, capable of moving autonomously through a space and then transporting items from where they're picked off shelves to the place they're packaged into boxes and shipped out. Previously this was done individually, with each robot working in isolation.

Locus' autonomous warehouse robots just got a whole lot smarter, thanks to a new software update that allows them to talk to each other. Anyone who has ever worked as part of a team (which, in today's hyperconnected world, is virtually everyone) will know that things work better when people talk with one another. This way knowledge gets shared, collaborations become possible, and individual successes or mistakes are collectively learned from. Why would you think that things would be any different in the world of robotics? That's exactly what the folks at Locus Robotics have been proving with a major new software update for their factory robot LocusBots. LocusBots are autonomous warehouse robots, capable of moving autonomously through a space and then transporting items from where they're picked off shelves to the place they're packaged into boxes and shipped out.

It was Amazon that drove America's warehouse operators into the robot business. Quiet Logistics, which ships apparel out of its Devens, Mass., warehouse, had been using robots made by a company called Kiva Systems. When Amazon bought Kiva in 2012, Quiet hired scientists. In 2015 it spun out a new company called Locus Robotics, which raised $8 million in venture capital. Last year, Locus unveiled its own warehouse robotics solution called the LocusBot--first using it for its own business, then selling them to companies that ship everything from housewares to auto parts.