This Dutch startup has found a way to make robots and vehicles completely autonomous

Accerion’s A round funding has been backed by Phoenix Contact Innovation Ventures, a Blomberg, Germany-based corporate venture capital investor, in syndication with LIOF, the economic development agency for the Limburg Province of the Netherlands. However, the funding amount has not been disclosed by the companies.

The tech startup’s positioning technology integrates into new or existing equipment such as forklifts, industrial vehicles and mobile logistics robots, enabling them to perform functions autonomously and with extreme precision even in dynamic environments.

The technology needs no special infrastructure. Instead, Accerion’s proprietary intelligent algorithms combined with advanced camera technology not only “learn” the floor as the only directional reference but collaborates with other vehicles. “Your floor is our map,” is the Accerion motto.

“Autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs) and mobile robots are key enablers for full automation in manufacturing and logistics,” said Marcus Böker, Managing Director of Phoenix Contact Innovation Ventures.

“For instance, the reduction of manual material handling in production lines is a main goal within the manufacturing industry, but this can only be partly addressed by existing technologies. Accerion’s technology allows AGVs and mobile robots to really navigate infrastructure-free by achieving far more accuracy than traditional infrastructure-based solutions.”

“Accerion is perfectly positioned for accelerated growth in the booming market of logistics robotization and automation through its game-changing positioning technique in combination with a smart, experienced and dedicated team,” said Gaby Zandbergen, Investment Manager at LIOF,

Rapid global adoption

Globally, the market for mobile robots is forecast to grow by double-digits with an expected valuation of more than 10 billion euros by 2025.

“The key objective is to get Accerion’s technology to the right customers: logistics automation companies who are building industry-leading solutions, and therefore need the latest, high-performance positioning technology,” said Vincent Burg, managing director.

“It’s amazing to see Accerion, its team and customer base grow exponentially over the years,” said Willem-Jan Lamers, founder. “This investment allows us to accelerate our developments and market adoption even faster.”

The investment comes at a time when Accerion is experiencing exponential growth in revenue and order flow for its Jupiter and Triton packages, with customers in the European Union, the United States, China and India. Accerion will use this significant capital injection to scale up production and nearly double its team as the firm competes for a larger share of the global logistics, warehousing and fulfillment market.

The fact that Phoenix Contact – both the venture fund and the parent industrial group, which reported 2.4 billion euros in 2018 turnover – is backing Accerion is a game-changing endorsement from an international automation-engineering leader.

Burg credited Phoenix and LIOF with sharing Accerion’s vision and goals: “Throughout the investment process, everything was geared toward the growth of our company.”

Founded in 2015 by Willem-Jan Lamers, Accerion is a Netherlands-based tech startup which has developed 100-percent infrastructure- free positioning technology for mobile robots that uses the floor as a reference.

With its breakthrough optical positioning and navigation technology for autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs), Accerion’s innovation enables effective navigation for mobile robotics and autonomous vehicles, achieving high accuracy without requiring expensive and inflexible infrastructure in the field.

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