Factory robotics startup Formic raises $50M to push into general-purpose robots

Formic, a Chicago-based robotics-as-a-service company, has raised $50 million in new capital to expand from task-specific factory automation into general-purpose robotics. The company says its existing fleet has logged more than 750,000 hours of production work. The round includes a Series B led by Mercato Partners, with participation from Light Ray Ventures, Lightscape Partners, Citi and other investors, plus debt financing from S2G Investments.

Formic said the funding will strengthen its AI and robotics capabilities, extend into applications such as metal fabrication, and grow its work across aerospace, space, defense, medical and energy markets. The company is working with Physical Intelligence to adapt that company's robotic foundation models using manufacturing data gathered from Formic's deployed systems. Founder and CEO Saman Farid said the industry has made gains in robot capability, but turning those systems into productive factory-floor tools remains a separate challenge that Formic has spent five years building a platform to solve.

Formic operates hundreds of robots across more than 100 facilities in more than 30 states, handling tasks like palletizing, case packing, machine tending, kitting and assist work, under a subscription model that avoids upfront equipment costs for customers. The company reports 99.6% fleet uptime and a 97% customer renewal rate, and says it now deploys robots into production about three times faster than a year ago.

Why it matters

It's a sign that robotics-as-a-service providers are starting to combine their real-world deployment data with general-purpose foundation models rather than building single-task robots.

Source: The AI Insider