Surgical Robotics Technology
Flexxbotics, an industrial automation startup located in Boston, MA whose mission is to Free Your Robot, recently received funding from the WPI Commercialization Fund. The funding will assist in Flexxbotic’s research and development in expanding their Flexx Connect platform.
Flexxbotics focuses on improving robot utilization and efficiency so customers can achieve aggressive payback for their automation investments. They accomplish this through productivity tools on the Flexx Connect platform such as the Flexx Reference and Flexx Beacon that help reduce complexity and setup time when repurposing a robot. They currently focus on providing solutions for Universal Robots (UR), a Danish manufacturer of smaller flexible industrial collaborative robot arms.
Flexxbotics co-founders Tyler Bouchard and Tyler Modelski were introduced to the WPI Commercialization Fund by John Joseph and Greg McHale, WPI alumni and co-founders of Datanomix, a leading vendor of production intelligence software for industrial manufacturers, also recipients of the WPI fund. Datanomix recently raised $6 million in series A funding co-led by Gutbrain Ventures and PBJ Capital to expand the reach of its production monitoring software.
Datanomix and Flexxbotics serve similar customers so the collaboration made for a good mentorship. John also serves on the WPI Technical Advisors Network (TAN), a network of WPI alumni that provides advising and networking services to support innovators and entrepreneurs.
“Data intelligence, connectivity and analytics will be the key ingredients fueling the manufacturing resurgence in America. Companies like Datanomix and Flexxbotics are on the leading edge of a new model in production management and factory flexibility. Our companies will work with manufacturing leaders to deploy real-time technology that transforms existing capital into highly productive and adaptable assets,”
said John Joseph, CEO and Co-founder of Datanomix. John has since gone on to be an official advisor to Flexxbotics along with Scott Harris and Brian Mellea, who are also a part of the WPI TAN.
The WPI commercialization team was impressed with Flexxbotics strong customer acquisition with customers such as Boeing and Toyota. Flexxbotic’s has also seen recent commercial expansion into new markets such as Europe that has led to new adoption of their technology.
”WPI recognizes the need to create and cultivate a network of talent from within the school, fellow alumni and surrounding technology community to guide, mentor and even invest in new ideas that are broadly transformational to some segment of the society. More importantly, these investments extend the core tenants of the WPI education and the model for lifelong learning and personal development. We are proud to be working with our alumni to launch these great companies.”
said Todd Keillor, Director, Office of Technology Commercialization. Flexxbotics has been recently exploring new ways to optimize collaborative robots and WPI’s investment will be important in progressing this initiative. Tyler Bouchard went on to say how the WPI investment impacts Flexxbotics
“We are excited to partner with WPI. Working with the WPI TAN and the Commercialization fund has given us access to invaluable resources to help us accelerate our mission.”
