Oct 13, 2023

No Comments Formant, a robotics company founded by Bot & Dolly co-founder Jeff Linnell, has announced a successful $21 million funding round led by BMW i Ventures. The funding will be used to accelerate the company’s go-to-market strategy and expand its reach across industries. Formant aims to revolutionize the robotics industry by focusing on software and data insights rather than hardware. Reflecting on his experience in the industry, Linnell realized that the real challenge was software, not hardware. He also acknowledged that there are many applications that are near-possible that can be greatly improved by human intervention. Formant is a data collection and evaluation platform that uses information collected by sensors built into robots. The platform enables people to manage assets deployed in the field at scale. By bringing humans into the equation, Formant aims to bridge the gap between the capabilities of robots and tasks that require human intervention. The platform is hardware agnostic and supports various types of robots, including flying robots, underwater robots, mowing robots, delivery robots, quadrupeds and bipeds. Formant has already achieved significant success in the market, particularly in underserved sectors such as agriculture. Customers include John Deere-owned Blue River, security robotics company Knightscope and BP. The company’s success is tied to its ability to provide an infrastructure and data platform that customers can easily use instead of building it themselves. The new funding will allow Formant to further improve its platform and expand its offering to more industries. The company’s vision is to revolutionize the robotics industry by providing people with powerful software and data insights, enabling them to manage and optimize robotics assets at scale. Sources: TechCrunch