Rios Intelligent Machines secured $28 Million in Series A funding

Rios Intelligent Machines, a California-based provider of end-to-end AI-powered robotic work cells for factory automation, has now secured $28 million in Series A funding.

Rios Intelligent Machines was founded by Dr. Bernard Casse. It is helping enterprises to automate their entire factories, supply chain, or warehouse operations – by deploying AI-powered end-to-end robotic work cells that integrate within the existing workflows.

Its robotics work cells are as of now deployed in the US in the manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, and food & beverages sectors.

Dr. Bernard Casse, RIOS' CEO, said, "Bedrock sectors of our economy are crippled by a labor shortage problem that Covid turned into a full-blown crisis. Today, most factories in the world are labor-intensive, and with millions of jobs unfilled, manufacturers are unable to keep up with skyrocketing consumer demand – and they are in extreme pain. We have the cure to this trillion-dollar opportunity. We're re-industrializing America with best-in-class American technology while upskilling our American workforce in the process and enabling them to access higher-level and better-paying jobs."

Steve O'Hara, the Managing Partner at Valley Capital Partners and a board member of RIOS, said, "We are pleased to see the tremendous growth at RIOS since our initial investment. From day one, we were impressed with the RIOS team and believed their data-focused and full-stack technology approach would help differentiate them quickly as the demand for automation services grew. We are excited to see how quickly their pipeline has grown, far exceeding our expectations from a robotics company at their size and stage and couldn't be more excited to continue to partner with Bernard and his team to build a world-class technology company."

The round was backed by the Main Sequence with participation from Orbit Venture Partners, Yamaha Motor Ventures, Valley Capital Partners, Hypertherm Ventures, Grit Ventures, and Morpheus Ventures.

Post funding, Main Sequence Partner Mike Zimmerman will join the RIOS board of directors team, and Yamaha Motor Ventures COO Anish Patel will join as the Board observer.

The AI startup, as of now, has plans to use the new funds to deploy its robotic fleet at scale to both existing and new customers, notes the announcement.