Discover how Formant is revolutionizing data management for robotics companies!

Formant raises $21 million to accelerate the development of its robotics data collection platform

Formant, a company specializing in robotic data collection and evaluation, has announced a $21 million round of financing. The deal, led by BMW i Ventures and backed by Intel Capital, GS Futures, SignalFire, Hillsven, Pelion Ventures, Holman, Ericsson, Goodyear Ventures, PICUS Capital and Thursday Ventures, will accelerate the development of the company's platform.

Formant has enjoyed notable success in the market, initially focusing on relatively untapped sectors such as agriculture. Its customers include Blue River, a John Deere-owned company, Knightscope, a company specializing in security robotics, and BP.

One of Formant's key achievements is to highlight the fact that the problem lies not in the hardware, but in the software. According to Jeff Linnell, co-founder of Bot & Dolly and founder of Formant, "there are so many applications that are already 95% feasible, and humans could fill that gap". This realization, gained during his time at Google and Alphabet X, led Linnell to develop a platform that collects and evaluates the complex information gathered by embedded sensors.

Formant's platform is designed to manage large-scale field-deployed assets. It is already used by tens of thousands of robots. Unlike companies such as Intrinsic and Viam, which focus on code-free robotic programming and deployment, Formant concentrates on data collection and evaluation.

A hardware-agnostic platform

Formant describes itself as a "radically hardware-agnostic" platform. It supports a wide variety of robots, whether flying, underwater, lawnmower, delivery, four-legged or two-legged. The only condition is that the computer used by the robot must be Linux-based, and that it must be possible to install software on it. This makes Formant a versatile solution that can be adapted to a wide range of robot types.

This $21 million round of financing will enable Formant to accelerate its growth and strengthen its presence in the robotic data collection and evaluation market. By focusing on under-exploited sectors and offering a flexible, adaptable platform, the company has been able to set itself apart and attract prestigious customers.