Avidbots Raises $70M to Accelerate Cleaning Robot Expansion
September 27, 2022
Canada’s Avidbots has announced it raised $70 million in Series C funding to expand its fleet of commercial cleaning robots and autonomy software. With the new financing, Avidbots said it has raised more than $107 million to date.
“This is a special milestone in our company’s development,” said Faizan Sheikh, CEO and co-founder of Avidbots. “A special thank you to all our customers around the world as well as Avidbotters past and present for their tireless efforts to help us get here. We are very excited about the future as this financing allows us to accelerate our timelines for bringing new products to market as well as continuously improve our autonomous driving software and service for existing customers to deliver an even better experience and greater value.”
Avidbots said it will also use the new funding to grow its sales and marketing efforts to bring products to more customers in automation growth markets, such as the U.S., and worldwide. The company’s autonomous floor-scrubbing robot, Neo 2, is experiencing strong demand, and as such Avidbots said it wants to add more than 100 employees in the product, engineering, and sales and marketing space groups within the next 12 months.
The latest funding round was led by Jeneration Capital, with participation from existing investors True Ventures, Next 47, SOSV, GGV Capital, BDC Capital, Golden Ventures, and Kensington Capital Partners. New investors included BMO Capital Partners, Golden Vision Capital and Nicola Wealth.
“We are excited to partner with Avidbots as they continue to deliver best-in-class robotic solutions to meet the industry demand for automation in the commercial cleaning marketplace,” said Tony Zhang, partner at Jeneration Capital. “Our investment solidifies the confidence we have in robotics players that deliver strong value-add solutions that lessen employee workload and fatigue levels from laborious work. As a result, employees can focus on higher-value activities across the organization.”
On the heels of the funding announcement, Avidbots said it doubled down on its investment in Kitchener-Waterloo by securing additional space to support R&D and testing. The new headquarters, located at 45 Washburn Dr, Kitchener, Ontario, expands from its current 40,000-square-foot location to a new space with more than a combined 70,000 square feet. The new headquarters is conducive to hybrid work, featuring multifunctional spaces along with recreational and rest environments to promote collaboration amongst Avidbotters, the company said. The new headquarters will also include a significant expansion to Avidbots’ testing facilities.
Avidbots added that it has continued to develop and expand the capabilities and quality of its autonomous robotic product line, most recently with the launch of the Disinfection Add-On to its Neo 2. Powered by Avidbots Autonomy, Neo understands and reacts to its operating environment and takes action to maximize cleaning productivity while minimizing human intervention. The Avidbots Command Center helps manage, monitor and measure Neo(s) from anywhere in the world 24/7/365.
The Neo robots are being used throughout the world in various high-traffic commercial environments, such as education, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, warehousing, airports and transit hubs, said Avidbots. More than 1,000 robots are deployed in more than a dozen countries throughout North America, Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Europe, cleaning floors for leading organizations.
For more details on Avidbots and its technology, visit the company’s website here.
