Grey Orange Robotics (GOR), raises funding from BITS Spark Angel and Blume Ventures

Grey Orange Robotics (GOR), which develops warehouse automation systems, has raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from a consortium of investors led by Blume Ventures and BITS Spark Angels, and other angels including the Hatch Group, Rajesh Sawhney, and Samir Sood.

Gurgaon-based GOR, co-founded by BITS Pilani alums Samay Kohli and Akash Gupta, recently launched India’s first automated warehousing system at the 6th International Trade Fair for Warehouse logistics and Material Handling (CeMATindia) held at Noida’s India Expo Centre in November 2012.

Earlier, Samay and Akash led their team at BITS to design & develop India’s first indigenous humanoid named AcYut, which won numerous robotic competitions around the world at universities like Stanford, Berkeley and other peer institutions across 7 countries.

With global trends like automation and digitalization impacting every aspect of today’s industrial supply chain, advanced and hi-tech warehouses are the demand of the present industrial age. GOR’s latest advancement – their “Butler System” – aims to automates the warehouse operation by using a fleet of mobile robotic drive units (Butlers) to speed up and streamline work quickly and efficiently (compared to the traditional labor-intensive and potentially manual error-prone battalion of workers running around the warehouse).

GOR claims to see significant customer traction from some of India’s largest eCommerce players including Flipkart, Yebhi and others.

It has also been attracting investors across the globe. As part of the investment, Sanjay Nath of Blume Ventures (one of India’s leading early stage venture funds, co-founded by Karthik Reddy and himself) will join the board of directors, while Abhinav Khushraj will be a board observer representing the BITS Spark Angels group (www.bitsspark.org : a global network of BITS Pilani alumni that invests in Indian-based startups founded by BITSian alumni).

Wolfgang Hoeltgen, one of GOR’s earliest angels and also a strategic mentor to the founding team, said “I know the management team of GOR since 2009, when I invited them to the world’s largest science and technology show “Ideenexpo” in Germany to present AcYut, the Kung Fu fighting humanoid Robot. When they approached me for funding recently, I realised that the Butler concept was the need of the hour. I have always been impressed by their vision, their technical competency and their ability to execute”.

Sanja Nath, Managing Partner of Blume Ventures from India, said “GOR’s innovation, evidenced by development of their Butler System, taps into India’s fast growing retail sector and the boom in internet shopping. Such systems can change the traditional methods of trade. We also liked the focus on “core tech” – developing robotic based automated warehousing solutions is not far from rocket science – applied to the real and fast growing Indian e-commerce & retail sector”.

Visit GOR to know more