News English — Robotics

Parcel + Post (website) is a niche show targeting postal and courier operators, but also attracts larger retailers. The show is held annually at RAI Amsterdam in the Netherlands and is easily accessible from Amsterdam Centraal Station (4 stops). STIQ visited the show for the first time in 2023.  LAYOUT The show consists of 3 halls and is a relatively small show. There were about 200 exhibitors, ranging from sortation equipment and conveyor vendors to locker manufacturers (plenty of locker vendors!).  Whilst the show is small, it appeared they manage to attract a high calibre clientele or attendees. Or as one exhibitor...

DECLINING VALUATIONS? REALLY? We recently heard Clearpath Robotics/Otto Motors was acquired by Rockwell (source) and thought that perhaps valuations had been affected by the massive decline in valuation of 6 River Systems. 6 River Systems (link) was founded in 2015 by ex-Kiva Systems (acquired by Amazon in 2012) people and was acquired by Shopify in 2019 for $450m (source). In 2023, Shopify's change of strategy led them to divest 6 River Systems for $12.7m (source), representing a 35X value destruction. STIQ's inital thought was that this may affect valuations in the wider automation sector, but it appears the Shopify divestment was viewed as...

Following a visit to LogiMAT 2023 in Stuttgart, Germany it became clear that the Cube Storage sector, pioneered by AutoStore in the 1990's, has become increasingly attractive to many different companies. There appeared to be an influx of startups and legacy companies targeting the Cube Storage sector and some of the people we talked to confirmed this impression from the April trade show. Most of these vendors are European, mainly from Germany and Netherlands. Note also that these companies targeted the Cube Storage space from a variety of angles, i.e. for storage or for transportation, etc. Volume Lagertechnik had developed a robot with...