Olis Robotics raising Series B funding
Article
OLIS ROBOTICS RAISING SERIES B FUNDING
TIM LEEMASTER
Olis Robotics, the Seattle, Washington-based software developer, is raising an unspecified amount from a Series B funding, people familiar with the matter said.
The round should close later in the year and the company, which was spun out of the University of Washington, plans to hire a chief financial officer around that time as well.
Olis hired Tom Boyer as chief commercial officer last month to drive expansion. Boyer ran the government division of Virginia-based satellite communications firm Kymeta.
Olis software and its portable console can be used to operate robots in hostile environments, including in the deep sea, mining underground and chemical plants. Its machine learning processes allow robots to learn and adapt onsite and in real time.
The company announced last week it had received a USD 50k grant from the US Air Force, which could rise to USD 1.5m after the company demonstrates the efficacy of its system in providing robotic services to satellites in Earth orbit.
Olis is currently generating revenue from underwater work the company has been contracted on. It has also just sold two units for industrial use, one of the persons said.
The company is targeting a contract for the international space station within the next year at the earliest.
Olis, which was previously known as BluHaptics, was spun out of the UW Applied Physics Laboratory and Electrical Engineering Department in 2013.
Work first began on surgical robots but eventually moved into hostile environments with work with the US Navy cleaning up unused ordnance.
“Surgical was getting pretty well entrenched and [hostile environments] was more of a blue sky opportunity with a lot of entrepreneurial activity,” one of the persons said.
Olis raised USD 1.4m from a Series A in 2017 from Seattle-based angel investment firm SeaChange Fund and Alliance of Angels.
It acquired machine learning startup White March Forest in September last year.
Olis currently employs 14 staff. One is based in the UK and the rest are in Seattle. The company’s software is currently compatible with eight different robotic systems.