Backed by Mitsubishi, Flipkart, Peter Thiel’s fund & Tiger Global Management, GreyOrange Robotics has designed two solutions; Butler and Sorter, which automate operations in industrial sectors, thus resulting in higher productivity and ‘perfect orders’
Samay Kohli and Akash Gupta founded GreyOrange Robotics based on a pure passion for robotics. They took the first steps in 2011 when research led them to observe that the level of automation in industrial sectors in India was low, as compared to markets like China and the US.
With headquarters in Singapore and an R&D team in Gurgaon, the company built two marquee solutions to bridge this gap; Butler and Sorter. Butler is a goods-to-person storage, picking and combining system, which streamlines and accelerates the order fulfillment process, recording 600 picks per hour, per station. For example, once an order is placed, the client’s IT infrastructure (servers) communicate the information to Butler’s server which in turn determines the sequence of orders placed and identifies where the products have been stocked. “Butler knows which shelf and which slot the product has to be picked from, and the entire process is automated thus leaving little room for errors. From the client’s point of view, this translates to higher productivity and perfect orders,” says Vaidya Subramanian, Product Management Executive at GreyOrange. Its second product, Sorter, automates outbound profiling and sortation process in fulfillment and distribution centers.
The company has recently raised US $140 million in a Series-C round led by Thiel’s Mithril Capital & Mitsubishi, with participation from Flipkart, Tiger Global, Project Verte and Blume Ventures. And, its clients include the likes of Mahindra Group, Delhivery, Flipkart, Myntra, Pepperfry and also a few clients in Singapore, Indonesia, Japan and Hongkong. The company has also recently launched operations in the US and has hired a regional CEO to lead North American operations.
Talking about the road ahead for the company and giving a brief insight into some technology advancements it is exploring, Subramanian explains that since Butler is an integrated solution, it can also protect factories against calamities. “For example, a factory environment typically has multiple floors with people working in them, and it is also equipped with building control systems and sensors. Now, these systems can integrate with the butler system and move across floors, and in the event of an emergency, it can trigger actions to stop operations, carry out evacuations and more.”
In essence, GreyOrange’s solutions have been designed in a way that its technology can be used in many different industrial scenarios.
Snapshot – Greyorange
Category: Industrial Robotics
Founders: Samay Kohli and Akash Gupta
Year: 2011
Investors: Mitsubishi, Flipkart, Thiel’s fund, Tiger Global Management, Blume Ventures & more
Headquarters: Singapore
