February 2023 Robotics Investment Total US$620 Million

By And Kara | March 28, 2023

Robotics funding for February 2023 totals $620 million (See Table 1, below or download Table 1 HERE), the yield of 36 investments. The February investment brings the 2023 total to around $1.14 billion.

Companies offering unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), usually coupled with drone-enabled data and analytics services, were especially strong in February, with companies receiving sizable mid- to late-stage funding rounds. These providers typically focus on survey and inspection applications for their offerings, with the construction, agriculture, utilities and energy sectors as target markets. Examples include Shield ($230 million, Series E), Meet Solutions ($60 million, Series B), Garuda Aerospace ($22 million, Series A), and i-KINGTEC ($20 million, Series C). based in England DRONAMIC secures $40 million in Seed round funding.

Table 1: Robotics Funding and Investment February 2023

Companies located in the US received the most rounds (14) and the most funding ($436 million), dwarfing any other country (Figure 1). Investments into Chinese companies came a long way in the second (7 rounds totaling $81 million).

Figure 1: February 2023 Robotics Investment by Country

All types of funding are well represented in the February 2023 investment survey (Figure 2). The Series E round accounted for the bulk of the funding amount, supported by investments into drone data service providers Zeitview (formerly DroneBase) and Shield of $55M and $230M respectively (Figure 3).

Figure 2: Total February 2023 Robotics Funding by Type of Investment

Figure 3: February 2023 Robotics Funding Amount by Amount and Investment Amount

Editors Note: What defines a robotics investment? The answer to this simple question is crucial in any attempt to measure it with some degree of precision. To make investment analysis consistent, repeatable, and valuable, it is important to exclude as much subjectivity as possible during the evaluation process. It begins with definitions of terms and descriptions of assumptions.

Investors and investments
Investments must come from venture capital firms, corporate investment groups, angel investors, and other sources. Friends-and-family investments, governmental/non-governmental agency grants, and crowd-sourced funding are excluded.

Robotics and intelligent systems company
Robotics companies must generate or expect to generate revenue from the production of robotics products (that sense, analyze, and act in the physical world), hardware or software subsystems and enabling technology for robots, or services that support robotics devices. For this analysis, autonomous vehicles (including technologies supporting autonomous driving) and drones are considered robots, while 3D printers, CNC systems and various types of “hard” automation are not.

Companies that simply have the name “robot”, or use the term “robot” to describe products and services that do not enable or support devices that work in the physical world, are excluded. For example, these include “software robots” and robotic process automation. Many companies have multiple locations in different countries. Company locations given in the analysis are based on their publicly listed head offices in legal documents, press releases, etc.

Verification
Funding information is collected from a number of public and private sources. This includes press releases from companies and investment groups, corporate briefings, research firm imarket, and association and industry publications. In addition, information comes from sessions at conferences and seminars, as well as during personal interviews with industry representatives, investors and others. Investments that cannot be verified are excluded and estimates are made if the investment amount is not given or is not clear.