Standard Bots raises $200 million to widen U.S. factory push
The US robotics company says it is on pace to deliver 10 percent of new US industrial robot deployments by next year
Standard Bots has raised $200 million in Series C funding at a $1 billion valuation, the latest sign that US investors still see room for a domestic robotics maker to scale in a market long dominated by Asian rivals. The Long Island company said the money will support production of its AI-native industrial robots and expand its manufacturing footprint in New York.
The round was led by RoboStrategy, with General Catalyst among the existing investors participating. Standard Bots described itself as America’s largest manufacturer of AI-native, industrial robotics, a claim that speaks less to present scale than to the ambition of building a vertically integrated robot maker inside the United States.
The broader contest is global. As manufacturers face labour shortages, rising wage bills and a search for more resilient supply chains, industrial robots are moving from specialist tools to strategic infrastructure, and countries are treating their manufacturing sector as a matter of industrial policy as much as engineering. In that race, the ability to build, not merely sell, robots on home soil has become a selling point for investors and policymakers alike.
“Robots are critical to the future of US manufacturing,” the company said in the release, framing the investment as part of a wider effort to keep advanced automation closer to American factories and customers. Standard Bots also said the funding will help it expand its Glen Cove facility to 70,000 square feet, a sizeable step for the company as it steps up efforts toward durable industrial scale.
The company’s pitch is that a simpler, AI-native stack can lower the bar for factories that have not traditionally deployed robots at all. It said it aims to capture 10 percent of new US industrial robot deployments by next year, a bold target that will test both demand and execution.
"AI-native robots are the essential power tool of the 21st century – the tool that will grow American manufacturing and help every worker to be a force at work," Evan Beard, co-founder, CEO, and Chief Engineer of Standard Bots, said in a press release.
"AI will allow industrial robots to do 100x more tasks with full autonomy. You just show your robot how it's done, and it learns through demonstration. The quickest way to get to full autonomy is through deployments, collecting real-world data, and iterating as fast as possible," Beard adds.
The company notes in its press release: the biggest opportunity in automation is the massive amount of essential work that robots still can't do. Its robots are designed to be taught through demonstration and observation rather than traditional coding, making advanced automation more accessible across a broader range of industrial tasks and environments, including customers like Sunoco, Lockheed Martin, Amazon, NASA, the U.S. Army, and hundreds of SMB manufacturers.
"Across our portfolio, we're seeing a clear shift from experimental robotics to systems that can deliver immediate, real-world value," Andrew Kang, CEO at RoboStrategy (Nasdaq: BOT), an actively managed closed-end fund focused on robotics, said in the release.
"Standard Bots stands out because they've solved one of the hardest problems in industrial automation: making robots that are not only powerful, but actually usable on the factory floor without specialised programming. Their approach to physical AI — teaching robots through demonstration — dramatically expands the range of tasks that can be automated. Combined with their commitment to building and scaling manufacturing in the U.S., we believe Standard Bots is uniquely positioned to define the next generation of industrial robotics," Kang adds.
Link to Standard Bot’s Post on LinkedIn