Robotics startups deliver 5-minute pitches to compete for $5,000 and invaluable feedback from industry investors.
The industry’s hottest robotics startups compete in Pitchfire for a $5,000 first-place prize and eternal bragging rights.
Startups deliver 5-minute ‘pitches’ to a panel of judges describing their solution, business model, value proposition and more. Judges pick a winner and two runners-up based on the startup they believe to be best primed for commercial success.
Participating startups receive a booth on the expo floor, can schedule one-on-one meetings with investors, can network with industry leaders, and have an open invitation to appear on The Robot Report Podcast.
Date Founded: May 1, 2024
Location: Austin, Texas
No. of employees: 2
Funding to date: $0
Website: https://www.copper-robotics.com/
RoboBusiness Booth: 725
Copper Robotics is developing a robotics framework for creating fast and reliable robots. The company’s founder, Guillaume Binet, said Copper offers a high-level configuration system and a Rust-first API. It uses Rust’s zero-cost abstractions and a data-oriented approach to achieve sub-microsecond latency on commodity hardware, avoiding heap allocation during execution. Guillaume said Copper leverages Rust’s strengths, such as memory safety, concurrency, and zero-cost abstractions, to build an ecosystem around Rust and robotics.
Date Founded: April 1, 2023
Location: Seattle
No. of employees: 2
Funding to date: $0
Website: https://www.dexman.ai/
RoboBusiness Booth: 822
This startup is building DEX, an AI operating system (OS) for robotic arms. Company founder and CEO Mihai Jalobeanu said the OS enables integrators (and even end-users) to rapidly develop and deploy robust and reliable vision-based robotic solutions without writing code. DEX enables workforce augmentation with cobots in unstructured environments, high-mix / low-volume manufacturing and many other circumstances where existing methods fail or would be cost-prohibitive.
Unlike classical operating systems, DEX does not require a screen, keyboard and mouse. Rather, users interact with DEX in the same way they would with an apprentice, explaining and showing the steps and strategies to achieve the task, supervising the execution and providing corrections if needed.
Date Founded: Sept. 1, 2020
Location: Lausanne, Switzerland
No. of employees: 15
Funding to date: $3.5M
Website: https://isochronic.com/
RoboBusiness Booth: 727
Isochronic is developing new types of pick & place industrial robots, which enable simultaneous parts transport for the first time. In June 2024, the company shipped and installed its first industrial pilot system. It is now engaging with additional customers across Europe & North America.
Date Founded: May 27, 2022
Location: Austin, Texas
No. of employees: 7
Funding to date: $35,000
Website: https://www.paradigmrobotics.tech/
RoboBusiness Booth: 729
Paradigm Robotics’ flagship product, FireBot, is a high-temperature resistant unmanned ground vehicle built to augment firefighting, public safety, and emergency operations in structure fires, emergencies, disasters, incidents, and hazardous environments. FireBot is outfitted with a modular and advanced suite of sensors that provide life-saving, mission-critical situational awareness in the most hazardous conditions.
FireBot can be deployed into structural fires or other immediately dangerous to life or health (IDLH) environments to support primary and secondary search operations, detect and identify hazards, respond to HazMat & RIC situations, monitor fire dynamics (locate the seat of a fire, extension etc), monitor air quality & structural integrity, 3D map structures, carry equipment and payloads (up to 300lbs), support post-incident auditing, act as a TED device, and act as a support device for fire ground operations.
Date Founded: February 24, 2021
Location: Boston
No. of employees: 4
Funding to date: $0
Website: https://www.robotics88.com/
RoboBusiness Booth: 824
Robotic 88’s autonomous unmanned aircraft system (UAS) empowers land managers to mitigate wildfire risk and increase ecosystem health by restoring the natural fire regimes of our forest landscapes through the enhanced application of prescribed fire. The core innovation of this UAS is its ability to fly at low altitudes below the tree canopy to map critical vegetation data from the forest floor.
This UAS combines autonomous decision-making algorithms, mapping, obstacle avoidance, and multi-UAS coordination to provide value at every stage of the burn: Pre-burn maps inform ideal weather conditions and resource requirements, and post-burn maps support complete mop-up (ensuring the fire is out) and long-term forest monitoring. Aerial ignition and situational awareness enable larger and safer prescribed burns.
Date Founded: January 1, 2020
Location: Campbell, Calif.
No. of employees: 7
Funding to date: $0
Website: https://www.summerrobotics.ai/
RoboBusiness Booth: 723
Summer Robotics has developed a robotic visual intelligence system, which it said gives robots 10x faster reaction times. The company licenses its software to partners that build vision hardware. This hardware, coupled with its software, enables robots to perform tasks that until now have only been able to be performed by humans, e.g. fastening bolts on a moving automotive line, with unpredictable motions.
Summer Robotics said it is currently working with its first partner to bring a product to market in early 2025 in the automotive manufacturing industry.
In the U.S., around 1 million adults are blind. Yet, only 2% to 8% use a white cane for navigation. Most instead rely on guide dogs or sighted companions, according to the Perkins School for the Blind. This reliance limits independence and mobility, a challenge Glidance is addressing through robotics.
The company’s flagship product, Glide, offers autonomous mobility assistance for the visually impaired, incorporating advanced guiding technologies and a unique mechanical design to foster independence. CEO Amos Miller, himself blind, brings a firsthand perspective to Glidance’s mission.
Colleen Sepich
Events Sales Director
csepich@wtwhmedia.com
857-260-1360
Heather Herbert
Event Sales Manager
hherbert@wtwhmedia.com
512-760-0570