The Munich-based company produces AI robots, including for carmaker BMW. Now the company has a new, prominent investor from Japan.
Germany has a lot to offer around robotics, including for foreign investors. Among the companies attracting attention is Munich-based Agile Robots, founded in 2018. It has been dubbed Germany’s first “robot unicorn,” meaning a company that investors value at more than $1 billion.
According to information from “Welt am Sonntag,” Japanese technology giant Softbank has now become a major shareholder in Agile Robots via a U.S. financing fund.
When asked, the Munich-based company only confirmed a change in major shareholder, but provided little other information. Additional information is possible in the coming months, the company said. As an explanation, insiders suspect that further rounds of financing have not yet been completed. The Federal Gazette succinctly states that an investor in Wilmington, Delaware, now holds more than 25 percent of the company’s shares.
Agile Robots’ focus is less on large, heavy industrial robots and more on smaller ones that work with artificial intelligence. Fields of application are the automotive industry and electronics production, according to the company. Taiwan’s Foxconn Group, an Apple supplier, is one of the company’s customers, as is BMW in China.
The close connection to the Chinese market is one of the special features of Agile Robots. The company now also has its own location in China. The chairman of the board is 39-year-old Zhaopeng Chen, and the chairman of the supervisory board is engineer Peter Meusel, 64. Both were researchers at the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich for a long time.
Company transformed into “Europa-AG
More than a dozen robot startups have now been created at the institute. In the past ten years, there has been an average of one spin-off per year, says a DLR spokeswoman. Agile Robots is one of them – it’s the largest and most successful so far.
Apparently, the company now has far-reaching plans. The company’s name is listed in the commercial register as a “Europa-AG,” and industry insiders believe that an IPO could be on the agenda in a few years. For the technology giant Softbank, the investment in Agile Robots is just one part of its robot strategy. The Japanese company invests in robot companies all over the world.
Moreover, the success of Agile Robots will not be determined by money alone, but also by how China, Japan and Germany position themselves in terms of technology transfer. The German government recently called for more caution in business with China. In retrospect, the entry of a Chinese company into the Augsburg robot manufacturer Kuka in 2016 is seen as a fall from grace and a sellout for the location.