A decade ago, in December, Bot & Dolly joined the ranks of robotics companies acquired by Google during its aggressive robotics acquisition phase. Bot & Dolly, a San Francisco-based company renowned for its special effects work in movies like “Gravity,” became part of Google’s ambitious venture to revolutionize the industry. However, for various undisclosed reasons, the grand vision didn’t come to fruition.
Following his tenure leading robotics efforts for Google and later Alphabet X, Jeff Linnell, co-founder of Bot & Dolly, went on to establish Formant. Through his experiences, Linnell came to two key realizations: firstly, hardware was not the primary challenge in robotics; it was the software. Secondly, many applications were hovering at around 95% feasibility, with the potential for human intervention to bridge the gap.
Linnell’s insights were not unique, as Google’s robotics trajectory also shifted towards a software-centric approach. The Everyday Robotics team became part of the Google DeepMind project, and Alphabet X birthed Intrinsic.
In contrast to companies like Intrinsic and Viam, which focus on no-code robotic programming and deployment, Formant primarily operates as a data collection and assessment platform for the copious amounts of data generated by onboard sensors.
“In recent years, people have realized that they can purchase infrastructure and a data platform. They lack the expertise to build these themselves, so that’s where we come in,” Linnell explains. “We’re actively involving humans in managing assets deployed in the field, ideally at scale. We have users with tens of thousands of robots on our platform, which was not the case just three or four years ago.”
Today, Formant is thrilled to announce a $21 million funding round, led by BMW i Ventures, and featuring investments from Intel Capital, GS Futures, SignalFire, Hillsven, Pelion Ventures, Holman, Ericsson, Goodyear Ventures, PICUS Capital, and Thursday Ventures. This funding round follows an $18 million Series A round disclosed in January last year.
The latest funding will be used to expedite Formant’s go-to-market strategy. The company has already made significant progress in this area, initially focusing on sectors with less comprehensive solutions, such as agriculture, while also considering more mature categories like warehousing and manufacturing for the future. Notable clients include Blue River, owned by John Deere, security robotics firm Knightscope, and BP.
Linnell emphasizes Formant’s hardware agnosticism, stating, “We work with all types of robots, from flying and underwater to mowing, delivery, quadrupeds, bipeds, and everything in between. To us, they all share a common trait: somewhere in the chain, there’s a Linux computer that can run our software. We’ve yet to encounter a robot we couldn’t integrate with.”
