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Trade show report: IMHX, Birmingham, UK, Sep 6-8, 2022 IMHX is not an annual trade show and has been held once every three years. STIQ has heard this changed to every two years recently. The last IMHX we visited was held in 2019. It should be noted that many robotics and warehouse automation trade shows in 2022 have been hugely popular affairs with record exhibitor and visitor numbers, such as Modex (US) and LogiMat (Germany). These shows were held in 1H22 which may have shielded these shows from the main impact of utility prices and talks of recession. The 2022 IMHX show was hosted...

SoftBank recently reported a massive $23bn quarterly loss in 1Q22 (source: FT.com) and announced more cautious investment criteria and smaller equity stakes in the future.  What might this mean for the robotics companies remaining in SoftBank's portfolio? Will there be a push to exit companies earlier, not invest in additional rounds, more pressure on management (robot companies) to commercialise/grow sales, etc?  In STIQs experience, SoftBank typically invests at later stages and attempt to be a kind of flywheel for increasing valuations, or valuation expectations. Some of SoftBank's portfolio companies have started working with other SoftBank portfolio companies or subsidiaries (this is relatively common among PE firms). It...

Amazon recently announced they would acquire iRobot, the company behind the consumer robot vacuum cleaner for $1.7bn.  Why did Amazon acquire iRobot? Whilst Amazon already have one of the largest robot workforces globally in its warehouses, the iRobot acquisition is unrelated to this part of Amazon.  STIQs view is that Amazon has a view of how future consumer dwellings/homes will be reliant on smart devices connected to a software ecosystem, such as Amazon's Alexa assistant. Amazon internal initiatives high failure rate? Amazon has already attempted to develop applications internally, such as Dash Buttons (discontinued, source), Astro (source), etc. but most of these appear to have failed....

Kiva Systems Acquisition In 2012, Amazon acquired Kiva Systems, a warehouse robotics company, for $775m (and also triggered increased activity in the wider warehouse robotics sector). Since 2012, the original Kiva robot has gone through a few iterations, new robot versions or upgrades have been released. Kiva also formed the base for what the division now known as "Amazon Robotics". (source) The Pegasus Robot The Pegasus (based on the original Kiva design) is probably the most well known of the Amazon Robotics versions and has also been deployed as a sortation robot. Various media outlets assume Amazon have deployed c.520,000 of these mobile...

STIQ are aware that our free reports are copied and referenced widely in startup funding decks and custom reports. Often this is done with proper sourcing and referencing of STIQs freely available reports.  Unfortunately, it comes as no surprise that various supposedly reputable market research companies are also referencing STIQs reports/data as their own and charging for what is essentially free. If you use data explicitly from research in your reports - please use proper referencing and source, i.e. "Source: STIQ Ltd + [year/report name]". LogisticsIQ In June 2022, we became aware of one market research company - LogisticsIQ - simply...