Accerion closes Series A investment; plans major expansion
Funding coincides with exponential sales growth
Venlo, Netherlands – Accerion has closed its Series A funding round as it prepares to enter new global markets while expanding its team.
Accerion’s A round is backed by Phoenix Contact Innovation Ventures, a Blomberg, Germany-based corporate venture capital investor, in syndication with LIOF, the economic development agency for the Limburg Province of the Netherlands.
The tech startup’s positioning technology integrates into new or existing equipment such as forklifts, industrial vehicles and mobile logistics robots, enabling them to perform functions autonomously and with extreme precision even in dynamic environments.
The technology needs no special infrastructure. Instead, Accerion’s proprietary intelligent algorithms combined with advanced camera technology not only “learn” the floor as the only directional reference but collaborates with other vehicles. “Your floor is our map,” is the Accerion motto.
“Autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs) and mobile robots are key enablers for full automation in manufacturing and logistics,” said Marcus Böker, Managing Director of Phoenix Contact Innovation Ventures.
“For instance, the reduction of manual material handling in production lines is a main goal within the manufacturing industry, but this can only be partly addressed by existing technologies. Accerion’s technology allows AGVs and mobile robots to really navigate infrastructure-free by achieving far more accuracy than traditional infrastructure-based solutions.”
“Accerion is perfectly positioned for accelerated growth in the booming market of logistics robotization and automation through its game-changing positioning technique in combination with a smart, experienced and dedicated team,” said Gaby Zandbergen, Investment Manager at LIOF,
Rapid global adoption
Globally, the market for mobile robots is forecast to grow by double-digits with an expected valuation of more than 10 billion euros by 2025.
“The key objective is to get Accerion’s technology to the right customers: logistics automation companies who are building industry-leading solutions, and therefore need the latest, high-performance positioning technology,” said Vincent Burg, managing director.
“It’s amazing to see Accerion, its team and customer base grow exponentially over the years,” said Willem-Jan Lamers, founder. “This investment allows us to accelerate our developments and market adoption even faster.”
The investment comes at a time when Accerion is experiencing exponential growth in revenue and order flow for its Jupiter and Triton packages, with customers in the European Union, the United States, China and India. Accerion will use this significant capital injection to scale up production and nearly double its team as the firm competes for a larger share of the global logistics, warehousing and fulfillment market.
The fact that Phoenix Contact – both the venture fund and the parent industrial group, which reported 2.4 billion euros in 2018 turnover – is backing Accerion is a game-changing endorsement from an international automation-engineering leader.
Burg credited Phoenix and LIOF with sharing Accerion’s vision and goals: “Throughout the investment process, everything was geared toward the growth of our company.”
About Accerion:
Accerion is a Netherlands-based tech startup founded in 2015 by Willem-Jan Lamers. Led by Willem-Jan Lamers and Vincent Burg, Accerion has developed 100-percent infrastructure-free positioning technology for mobile robots that uses the floor as a reference. With its breakthrough optical positioning and navigation technology for autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs), Accerion’s innovation enables effective navigation for mobile robotics and autonomous vehicles, achieving high accuracy without requiring expensive and inflexible infrastructure in the field.
For more information, please visit: www.accerion.tech
About Phoenix Contact Innovation Ventures:
PHOENIX CONTACT Innovation Ventures is the global corporate venture capital company of the PHOENIX CONTACT Group, a global manufacturer and supplier of components and systems for electrical connection and industrial automation technology. The venture capital company invests in startups with business models that are related to electrical connection technology, industrial digitization, automation and control technology, and associated markets.
For more information, please visit: www.phoenixcontact-innovationventures.com
About LIOF:
LIOF – the development and investment agency of the Dutch province of Limburg. Its primary objective is to develop and promote the Limburg economy. For this purpose, LIOF makes available venture capital, supports innovative projects of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s) and attracts foreign investors.
For more information, please visit: www.liof.nl/en
For more information, contact:
Accerion (Unconstrained Robotics B.V.)
Kazernestraat 19
5928 NL Venlo
The Netherlands
+31 77 208 0008
Off they go!