Fulfillment is still hot, as GreyOrange raises $135M

Over the last few years, I’ve asked countless people in the robotics space “what comes next after warehouse/fulfillment?” The already popular category got red hot during the pandemic, as online shopping turned from convenience to necessity.

Amazon has been leading the space for more than a decade with in-house systems, while companies like Locus, 6 River Systems and Fetch (now owned by and branded Zebra) have struck partnerships with top retailers. But asking “what’s next” is in no way an indication that fulfillment’s time in the spotlight has ended. In spite of some economy-fueled investment slowdowns, it’s a huge category that’s only getting huger.

Headquartered roughly 20 miles north of Atlanta, in suburban Roswell, Georgia, GreyOrange was founded in 2011 — the year before Amazon’s Kiva deal shook the industry. The firm has landed a number of high-profile customers in the intervening decade-plus, including Walmart Canada, Nike and Swedish fast-fashion retailer H&M.

Image Credits: GreyOrange

The company hasn’t had much of an issue fundraising, either. GreyOrange announced a $140 million Series C in 2018 and today announced that it has raised a $135 million growth financing Series D. Anthelion Capital led the round, which also featured returning investments from Mithril, 3State Ventures and Blume Ventures.

Over the years, it has been working to build a full-stack solution for warehouse, fulfillment and 3PL needs. That includes Kiva-like AMRs (autonomous mobile robots), forklifts and bin systems for picking, coupled with its own first-party (“hardware-agnostic”) fleet management software.

CEO Akash Gupta noted that this round will — in part — go toward delivering systems to customers.