Theker raises $85M to build reconfigurable factory robots

In short: Theker, a Barcelona-based robotics startup, raised $85 million to build factory robots that can be reconfigured to do different kinds of work.

What happened

Theker says its robots are meant for factories and warehouses where tasks change often. Instead of building a robot for one job, the company is building machines whose parts can be swapped or resized, including hands and arms. Think of it like a power tool where you can change the attachment depending on what you need to do.

The funding round is a Series A, which is an early major round of investment that helps a startup scale up. Theker called it Europe’s largest robotics Series A. TechCrunch said it could not find a larger one in its records.

The round was led by CRV, an American venture capital firm. Other backers included Samsung and Aglaé Ventures, which is tied to LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault. Theker also said Inditex, the parent company of Zara, was an early backer.

Theker plans to expand beyond retail and logistics into heavier industrial manufacturing. The company has a showroom in central Barcelona and plans to open more as it grows across Europe, the US, and Asia. It also plans to hire more staff, and said it has already received about 15,000 job applications.

Why it matters

Factories are dealing with labor shortages, and many companies want automation that can handle changing tasks. A reconfigurable robot could be easier to reuse across different jobs than a robot built for a single, repeatable action, like always putting the same item in the same box.

Source: TechCrunch AI