The industry is eager for humanoids to replace factory workers, even though the technology isn’t fully prepared yet. Faced with labor shortages, manufacturers are increasingly drawn to startups offering faster automation without the typical compromises. That’s the bet behind Theker, an AI robotics company aiming to move past single-task-trained robots. “If you always have to put the same cookie in the same box, that works perfectly, but most processes aren’t like that,” co-founder Carla Gómez Cano told TechCrunch. Theker is built for that messier reality. Theker’s robots, unlike fixed-form humanoid designs such as those from Boston Dynamics, are engineered to be easily reconfigured. Their hands, arms, and general structure can be swapped or scaled based on the job—whether it’s sorting parcels, packing clothes, or handling bottles and cans in a warehouse. The fact that Inditex, Zara’s parent company, came on board as an early investor signals that Theker’s ambitions begin there, but certainly don’t stop. The company’s wider objective is to expand from retail into more demanding industrial environments such as manufacturing, where manual tasks are significantly more complex and larger in scale. This all-purpose vision has solidified Theker’s reputation as one of Europe’s most promising startups to follow — and enabled it to attract substantial funding. The Barcelona-based startup has just secured $85 million in a round it’s describing as “Europe’s largest robotics Series A to date.” (We couldn’t find a bigger one in our records, either.) Less than a year after its record seed round, this Series A was led by US VC firm CRV and supported by a combination of traditional and strategic investors, including Samsung and Aglaé Ventures—the investment arm linked to LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault. Gómez Cano noted that Samsung is not yet a client, but the two parties are in advanced talks.
Theker just raised $85M to build the factory robot that doesn’t specialize in anything
- by stefan