Israeli Startup CommonSense Robotics Raises $20 Million

By NoCamels Team February 16, 2018 < 1 minute

CommonSense Robotics team. Courtesy

February 16, 2018 | Israeli startup CommonSense Robotics announced that it raised $20 million in a Series A funding round this week led by Playground Global, and previous investors including Aleph VC and Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors. The Tel Aviv-based company aims to help online grocery retailers offer on-demand, one-hour deliveries using robotics and artificial intelligence. The funds will be used to expand the startup’s global operations. The company says its solutions enable retailers to shorten the supply chain with Micro-Fulfillment-Centers where robots sort and process inventory, and which are in close proximity to customers. CommonSense Robotics CEO and co-founder Elram Goren tells Techcrunch, “Our AI software breaks the order down into robot tasks, and finds the right robots to complete those tasks. We have robots that are capable of moving boxes (totes) around extremely efficiently and at high speeds. Our various types of robots will bring the right totes of products to a stationary human ‘picker’ who in turn packs the order, which is then sent by robots towards the delivery interface where orders are packed into a van or scooter for dispatch”. The company is set to deploy the robots in its first fulfillment center in Tel Aviv over the next three months, VentureBeat reports citing a statement from CommonSense, with plans to launch five spaces in the US and the UK in 2018.