Calgary-based Attabotics has raised US$50 million from Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s Teachers Innovation Platform and tech conglomerate Honeywell, a previous backer. The company’s fulfillment system figures out where in its inventory tower to store items using machine learning, then uses shuttling robots to retrieve them for shipping as needed. 

Demand increased significantly during the pandemic, as consumers bought more of everything online. “Our phones are blowing up,” CEO Scott Gravelle told The Logic in an early April interview, adding that inbound inquiries had tripled. “The future came fast for a lot of companies.” 

Grocers and consumer packaged goods companies have seen a particular increase in online demand during the pandemic. “We’re seeing numbers now in 2020 that we were expecting to see in 2025,” Gravelle said. The uptick has also benefited e-commerce platforms like Shopify. 

Attabotics makes its robots and the frames they run around in Calgary, then assembles the systems for customers on site; projects typically take six to nine months. Current installations include a California warehouse that department-store chain Nordstrom uses to dispatch online orders and restock local stores. The company also has a recent contract with “Canada’s largest retailer,” a business with multiple banners Gravelle said he can’t name due to a non-disclosure agreement.  

Tuesday’s announcement comes just over a year after Attabotics’ US$25-million Series B raise. Since then, its staff has more than doubled to just over 230, with the majority in R&D and engineering. The next task is to set up a network of micro-fulfillment sites servicing multiple smaller retailers. It’s akin to what Amazon’s fulfillment service does for merchants, except consumers won’t order from a centralized marketplace and the boxes won’t have Attabotics’ name on them. 

Customers would rent space in the robotic towers and pay per transaction, opening up the business to companies without the capital to buy a whole system for themselves. Gravelle said Attabotics is talking to large warehouse real estate companies, mall owners and even existing big-box stores about providing the space for these facilities. “We want to be within a 15-minute drive of the consumer,” he said.