A Vancouver-based robotics company aiming to improve robot "hands" has raised $4.5 million in its latest investment round.
Nexera Robotics Corp. revealed Thursday that the fresh capital will be used to expand its research and development capacity.
Money will also be used for early customer engagement and testing technology aimed at helping robots with grasping, CEO Roy Belak told BIV.
"We're not doing dexterous manipulation. We're doing grasping for item-picking robots, typically used in logistics applications," he said.
The company has developed NeuraGrasp, a technology meant to help robots interact with objects more reliably. Nexera's technology is currently going into early-stage manufacturing.
While other robotics firms may build robots, Belak said his company specializes in manufacturing the “hand – the grasping portion” for robots.
Nexera aims to increase the diversity of items that can be handled by item-picking robots, which can currently handle around 70 per cent of items with a suction cup system, Belak said.
"Our target is to push this well above 95 per cent of the coverage," said Belak, whose company was founded in 2021. "The second key point is also to mitigate damage. We have a technology which is inherently compliant, and forgiving in the contact surfaces and how it approaches the items."
He added Nexera's goal is to become the standard for item-manipulation robot grasping.
The company’s latest capital raise saw funding come from BDC Capital, Vancouver-based VC Defined, Toronto-based RiSC Capital, among others.
Another Vancouver robotics company also shared progress on their own grasping technology.
Sanctuary Cognitive Systems Corporation revealed Wednesday the integration of a new sensor technology for the artificial hands of their Phoenix humanoid robots.
The new tactile sensors allow robots to achieve more complex tasks with greater precision, said the release.
Sanctuary AI said it plans on deploying autonomous robots into the workforce to fill labour gaps amidst widespread shortages in the automotive, distribution and retail industries.
In July 2024, a company news release said it received an undisclosed but significant investment from BDC's Thrive Venture Fund and InBC Investment Corp. This brought the total investment in the company to over $140 million at that time, said the release.
With files from Glen Korstrom
