TriOrb, a developer of an Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) platform that moves on spheres rather than wheels, announced on 7 August that it had completed the second close of its Series B funding round. The company secured a combined ¥300 million (about $1.9 million) in equity and debt.
The company had already unveiled this Series B round in June, which served as the first close: it then raised ¥2.88 billion (about $18 million at current rates), bringing total Series B proceeds to more than ¥3.1 billion.
Before the Second Close, TriOrb Announced Integration with KEYENCE PLCs
We also covered the company in detail in our article from the time of the first close, below.
As a development between the first and second closes, in late July the communication protocol of KEYENCE’s programmable logic controllers (PLCs) was implemented into TriOrb’s base software. This removes the need for relay equipment between TriOrb and KEYENCE devices, improving reliability.
The company also explains on its website that “On our own, we provide services limited to the chassis hardware (TriOrb BASE) and to software such as autonomous movement. For customers who wish to develop their own systems, or to integrate our product with their own robots, we make proposals in cooperation with partner trading companies, system integrators (SIers) and the like.” This suggests that, as a rule, integration with other companies’ host systems is handled on a case-by-case basis.
TriOrb’s CEO, Shuichi Ishida, earned his doctorate at the Kyushu Institute of Technology (Kyutech) and spent ten years at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). Partly against this background, the company is a certified AISol startup — a scheme, run by AIST Solutions (a for-profit company under the AIST umbrella), that certifies startups able to draw on AIST’s technology.
“This Is Not Simply a Top-Up of Funds,” Says the CEO
In the Series B second close, the equity was taken up by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Toyota Tsusho, while the debt was provided by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.
At the first close, the company had described the use of funds as “product development and mass production toward a full-scale market launch, business development in the US market, and strengthened R&D and organisational expansion.” In this announcement, it says it will accelerate those efforts.
TriOrb’s Ishida commented: “This round is not simply a top-up of funds. It is a major step forward — we have gained both the power to deliver technology born in Japan to the world and the power to create value at the very front line of the manufacturing floor.”
