Robotics startup Tutor Intelligence nabs $75M investment

Warehousing automation company Tutor Intelligence has secured $75 million in funding to develop and scale its robotics technology. Andreessen Horowitz led the latest Series A round, followed by Union Square Ventures and Neo. The investment caps Tutor's funding journey, having raised capital in previous rounds previously led by Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, and Neo.

Tutor's flagship product is Cassie, a mobile robotic arm capable of picking up items from pallets and placing them in containers. The arm can process up to 18 items per minute, handling packages weighing over 50 pounds each. Cassie is mounted on a four-wheeled platform, allowing it to autonomously navigate between different areas of a warehouse.

Learning new package types is a challenge for robotic arms, as they often need manual coding to adapt their workflow. Tutor's Cassie, however, utilizes artificial intelligence models to learn how to pick up new items automatically. The company also ships Sonny, a second wheeled robot equipped with a pair of robotic arms and an array of cameras. Sonny uses depth data from the cameras to locate items on shelves and place them into packages.

Tutor plans to apply Sonny to various industrial applications, including product assembly and equipment maintenance. The company's AI models are trained at a facility hosting over 100 robots, where human experts demonstrate tasks using a remotely controlled robot. Cassie and Sonny's AI models learn through imitation, enabling Tutor to create scalable and adaptable robots for various industrial use cases.

Tutor sells its robots under a usage-based pricing model, eliminating the need for customers to make large upfront purchases. The company has seen a nearly fourfold increase in the number of facilities using its robots over the past year. The recently raised funding will be used to enhance Tutor's AI models and accelerate robot production.