\n<\/p>\n
Ten years ago this December, Bot & Dolly became one of a dozen or so robotics companies snapped up during Google\u2019s robotics acquisition spree. The San Francisco-based firm, best known for its special effects work on films like \u201cGravity,\u201d was folded into a new portfolio with ambitious plans to shake up the industry. For a lot of reasons we won\u2019t go into here, however, things didn\u2019t work out that way.<\/p>\n
After a few years heading up robotics for Google and then Alphabet X, Bot & Dolly co-founder Jeff Linnell launched Formant. Among the insights gained during his time at the company, he tells TechCrunch, \u201cis that hardware is not the problem. It\u2019s software.\u00a0The second insight is that there are so many applications that are 95% happening or 95% possible and that humans might pick up the slack for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Linnell clearly wasn\u2019t alone in such realizations. Google\u2019s robotics history since those salad days have also largely found the company pivoting to software. Much of the Everyday Robotics team was absorbed into the Google DeepMind project, while Alphabet X has since graduated Intrinsic.<\/p>\n
Rather the sort of no-code robotic programming\/deployment companies like Intrinsic and Viam are aiming for, Formant is best understood as a data collection and assessment platform for the complex swaths of information on-board sensors are able to collect.<\/p>\n
Image Credits:<\/strong> Formant<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIn the last couple years, people realized they can buy infrastructure and a data platform. It\u2019s not something they have the experience to build or that they\u2019re expert in, so that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing,\u201d says Linnell. \u201cWe\u2019re really bringing humans into the equation to managing field-deployed assets. Ideally those assets are deployed at scale. We\u2019ve got folks on the platform with tens of thousand of robots. That wasn\u2019t the case three or four years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n Today Formant is announcing a $21 million funding round led by BMW i Ventures and featuring Intel Capital, GS Futures, SignalFire, Hillsven, Pelion Ventures, Holman, Ericsson, Goodyear Ventures, PICUS Capital and Thursday Ventures. The round follows an $18 million Series A announced last January<\/a>.<\/p>\n This most recent round of funding will go toward accelerating the company\u2019s go to market. Formant has already had success on that front. The company began by focusing on relatively underserved sectors like agriculture, rather than more mature categories, including warehouse and manufacture (though those are also on the horizon). Clients Include the John Deere-owned Blue River and security robotics firm Knightscope, as well as BP.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re radically hardware agnostic,\u201d says Linnell. \u201cWe\u2019ve got flying robots, underwater robots, mowing robots, delivery robots, quadrupeds, bipeds. You name it, there\u2019s something on the platform that represents it. To us they all look the same. Somewhere in the chain, there\u2019s a Linux computer that you can install a piece of software on. We haven\u2019t met a robot yet that we haven\u2019t been able to play with.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n