I’ve said it
right here on these very pages: If hardware is hard, robotics are next to
impossible. That truism is not better exemplified by this week’s closure of
Rethink Robotics. A well-respected name in automation, the Boston-based company
produced a pair of robotics that have become mainstays in research facilities
and warehouse floors alike.
In a
statement provided to the Media, Rethink spells out its own demise in
straightforward language. “Rethink Robotics closed its doors,” it reads. “We
were early to market with a very innovative product that was ahead of its time,
and unfortunately, we did not achieve the commercial success we had expected. A
planned acquisition of the company fell through at the last moment. All of
Rethink Robotics’ employees are being actively recruited for roles in other
robotics firms.”
Rumors of
the Rodney Brooks-led startup had been floating around the robotics industry
for some time now, but that doesn’t make the closure any less impactful. In the
company’s decade-long existence, it produced Baxter and Sawyer, two of the most
iconic robots in the collaborative category.
“Rodney
Brooks and Rethink Robotics are important pioneers in the collaborative robot
sector,” Association for Advancing Automation/Robotic Industries Association
President Jeff Burnstein said in a statement offered to TechCrunch. “Like
start-ups in all sectors, not everything goes smoothly. Sometimes early
products aren’t exactly as good as you would like, sometimes new ideas don’t
receive immediate market acceptance, and sometimes other market players gain
traction sooner. Some or all of these factors may have impacted Rethink.”
Given the
difficulty of maintaining in the category, perhaps none of this ought to be a
surprise. During its existence the 100-person team raised nearly $150 million
by Crunchbase’s count, but that ultimately wasn’t enough for it to continue
down its path. If this was 2012, perhaps Amazon might have eyed the company
while building its own robotics wing atop Kiva systems.
Two years
later, the company might have been a good fit for Andy Rubin’s nascent Google
Robotics, which had its eyes firmly set on factory automation. Even now,
SoftBank’s deep pockets could have gone a long ways toward keeping it afloat —
after all, the financial giant was more than happy to take Boston Dynamics off
Google’s hands, adding it to the portfolio that already included Pepper manufacturer,
Aldebaran Robotics.
Ultimately,
however, it sounds like the company’s demise was a confluence of factors.
Certainly there appears to be some parallels that can be drawn to the 2014
closure of Bay Area-based Willow Garage, whose PR2 was previously a familiar
sight in university robotics labs all over the world.
Certainly
there’s hope to be found in Willow Garage’s legacy, from spin-offs like Redwood
Robotics to employee led companies like Fetch, to the continued existence of
the ROS, the Robot Operating System.
TC
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