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Assembly Line
Vecna Robotics Taps Autonomous Vehicle Pioneer Karl Iagnemma as CEO, Secures Additional Funding to Drive Growth
Vecna Robotics, the leader in flexible material handling automation solutions, today announced it has brought on Karl Iagnemma as CEO and closed $14.5MM in additional funding from existing investors. Proceeds of the funding round are earmarked to accelerate technology and product enhancements to address the automation needs of operators in automotive, general manufacturing, and high-volume warehousing.
Iagnemma is a robotics expert and entrepreneur with a distinguished career blending academic research and industry leadership. He co-founded and served as CEO of autonomous vehicle technology company nuTonomy, which was later acquired by Aptiv in 2017 for $450MM. Under Iagnemma’s leadership, nuTonomy launched the world’s first public robotaxi pilots in Singapore. Iagnemma was also founding CEO of Motional, a $4B robotaxi joint venture between automaker Hyundai Motor Group and Tier 1 supplier Aptiv.
Prior to his industry career, Iagnemma directed the Robotic Mobility Group research laboratory at MIT, where he authored publications related to robotics and artificial intelligence that have been cited more than 20,000 times. Iagnemma is also an inventor with more than 50 issued or pending patents in robotics and autonomous vehicles. While at MIT, Iagnemma met Daniel Theobald, a fellow MIT alumnus and founder of Vecna Robotics. In 2020, Iagnemma made an angel investment in Vecna Robotics based on the company’s technology leadership and the potential for robotics to revolutionize material handling.
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Vecna Robotics raises new capital as the warehouse automation industry grows
Vecna claims it can automate the process of unloading materials from an incoming truck into outbound trailers, vans, or rail cars. Its robots are designed to gather full cartons or boxes of products and group and package related items together as one unit, delivering materials to assembly lines and moving products to fulfillment operators who pick what’s needed.
All of Vecna’s robots are managed through the company’s Pivotal software, which handles firmware updates and analytics. With Pivotal, warehouse workers can view “pick lists” containing product images and other information and corral the robots based on their location, availability, and more.