British tech company Ocado has acquired two US robotics startups as the company seeks to improve the efficiency of its warehouses. The purchase of San Francisco company Kindred Systems for €262 million and Las Vegas-based Haddington Dynamics for €25 million in cash and stock is expected to help the retailer introduce more automation solutions. Ocado has been eager to embrace new technology at every opportunity; earlier this year it announced that it had bought a minority stake in another robotics company, Myrmex. Ocado believes that picking and packaging food is one of the toughest challenges for robots, but it's clearly a challenge the company wants to overcome.
Robotic retailer
Kindred Systems has made a name for itself with its AI-powered robotics, using deep reinforcement learning. Such technology is expected to help machines deal with disparate items like those found in the retail space. Haddington Dynamics, meanwhile, is a manufacturer of highly-skilled robotic arms that aims to unlock new opportunities in the field of guided robotic manipulation. Investors appear to be pleased with the new Ocado purchases, with Group shares trading higher following the acquisitions. The company has had a good year despite the coronavirus pandemic, benefiting from increased demand for online shopping. "We see the opportunities offered by robotic handling solutions as significant, both for Ocado Smart Platform customers and in the rapidly growing e-commerce and logistics industries," said Tim Steiner. CEO of the Ocado group. “Ocado has made significant progress in developing the engineering, computer vision and machine learning systems required for the robotic picking solutions currently in production at our customer management center in Erith. Given the market opportunity, we want to accelerate the development of our systems, in particular by improving their speed, accuracy, product range, and cost-effectiveness. via CNBC