{"id":471402,"date":"2021-04-06T07:03:27","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T11:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marketnewsdesk.com\/?p=471402"},"modified":"2021-04-06T07:03:27","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T11:03:27","slug":"nea-leads-12m-series-a-in-rapid-robotics-amid-us-manufacturing-resurgence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marketnewsdesk.com\/index.php\/nea-leads-12m-series-a-in-rapid-robotics-amid-us-manufacturing-resurgence\/","title":{"rendered":"NEA leads $12M Series A in Rapid Robotics amid US manufacturing resurgence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nRapid Machine Operators get to work solving critical labor shortages
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SAN FRANCISCO , April 06, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Rapid Robotics<\/a>, creator of the first ready-to-work robotic machine operator, today announced $12M in Series A funding led by NEA, with existing investors Greycroft, Bee Partners and 468 Capital also participating.<\/p>\n

The latest investment brings Rapid Robotics\u2019 total funding to $17.5M, with Rapid\u2019s solutions producing more than 50,000,000 parts over the past year across almost every industry sector including plastics, metals, medical devices, automotive, pharma, semiconductors and electronics\/EMS.<\/p>\n

Rapid Robotics entry into the market comes at a pivotal moment for US manufacturing, as the Biden administration rolls out<\/u><\/a> ambitious plans to revitalize the sector, boosting competitiveness in areas including automotive, pharmaceuticals, public health and semiconductor.<\/p>\n

But these efforts face a serious challenge: a chronic shortage of factory workers. Deloitte estimates<\/u><\/a> that by the end of the decade US manufacturers may have 2.4 million jobs they cannot fill, putting $454 billion of business at risk.<\/p>\n

The shortfall is especially acute with machine operators, the employees who work the machines that perform 80% of all factory tasks. By some accounts, American manufacturers need 600,000 more operators to meet demand and compete with factories overseas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t solve this problem, US manufacturers will never be able to compete in a global market,\u201d said Rapid Robotics CEO Jordan Kretchmer. \u201cIt\u2019s really that simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica\u2019s shortage of machine operators is a bona fide crisis,\u201d agreed NEA General Partner and former Silicon Graphics Chief Technology Officer Forest Baskett. \u201cWe have to address it if we want to make America a manufacturing leader again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until recently, manufacturers were caught between a scarcity of machine operators and an inability to automate.<\/p>\n

\u201cRobotics made sense for large-scale assembly-line jobs with decades-long windows for ROI, but not for operating the manufacturing machines that do most of the work on factory floors,\u201d Baskett said. \u201cRobots cost too much to begin with and even more to train. The numbers just didn\u2019t pencil out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rapid Robotics changed this \u2018automation equation\u2019 with the Rapid Machine Operator, the first affordable robotics solution for automating machine tasks. Now its biggest problem is keeping up with demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in manufacturing for more than 20 years, and the enthusiasm for the Rapid Machine Operator is like nothing I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d said Mike Lewis, head of sales and marketing at Rapid Robotics, and former VP of business development at global technology, supply chain and manufacturing company Flex. \u201cWhen we meet with potential customers, at first they\u2019re skeptical because they\u2019ve been burned by vendors who couldn\u2019t deliver. When they see what the Rapid Machine Operator can do, they start to get excited. By the end of the visit they just want to know how soon we can get RMOs in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rapid Machine Operator is an all-in-one robotics solution that comes ready to perform common machine operating tasks like injection molding, pad printing, heat stamping, pick-and-place and dozens of others.<\/p>\n

Unlike other robots, the Rapid Machine Operator arrives complete with machine vision and pretrained AI, so it can get to work in less than a day. And it gains capabilities over time, as the entire Rapid Machine Operator fleet shares expertise and new skills through the cloud.<\/p>\n

Each RMO is controlled via tablet\u2014no robotics expertise required\u2014and can be easily repurposed for new tasks as the need arises, using 3D-printed grippers that can be quickly fabricated on site for no additional charge.<\/p>\n

With Rapid Machine Operators available by subscription for less than $2,100\/month, manufacturers increase profits by an average of $110K per year for each unit installed, and reach positive ROI almost immediately as a result of Rapid\u2019s innovative OpEx pricing model, allowing them to successfully bid for work that previously would have gone overseas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to overstate the economic implications of the Rapid Machine Operator,\u201d said Aaron Jacobson, partner at NEA. \u201cAfter looking at numerous robotics startups in America and beyond, only Rapid Robotics had the right technology focused on the right needs to make a broad-based, immediate impact on the competitiveness of US companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recent Rapid Robotics customers include:<\/p>\n