European startups focused on electric vehicles, batteries and solar energy systems are up against a formidable China, which is a leader in those markets in part because of cheap manufacturing and ample government subsidies.
Swedish gigafactory company Northvolt filing for bankruptcy recently has shown that the dream of building a new European battery industry to compete with the country’s dominance is easier said than done. Companies in other sectors have struggled to compete too.
But one area where European companies hope to have an edge over their Chinese counterparts is robotics — and German company Neura Robotics is eager to prove it.
The company — which builds robots capable of ‘seeing’, walking and manipulating objects — has this year relocated the majority of its production from China to Germany. The move was in part to show confidence in Germany as a business location, and prove that winning robotics companies can be built here in Europe.
“I’ve travelled a lot and have visited top universities in the US, been to China and Japan, and if I compare the core technology [between these countries], there’s still a lot of things coming from Germany, like sensors for example,” says David Reger, CEO of Neura Robotics.
“I do believe, especially in Europe, we’re still in a unique and special position to […] win in the long term because of the way we do things.”
What does Neura Robotics do?
Neura Robotics builds ‘cognitive’ robots that it says can see, hear, touch and remember. It has five models including MAiRA, a cognitive robotic arm, MiPA — a human like model with a long robotic arm that could serve trays to patients in a hospital or play catch with a child, which isn’t yet on the market — and its newest addition, the MAV mobile robot, which is trolley-like and capable of transporting heavy loads. Its humanoid robot, 4NE-1, is still in the pilot stage; a third generation of it will be released next year. The industrial models (MAiRa, MAV and LARA, another robotic arm model which will be manufactured in Germany) cost €15k-45k.
Neura isn’t just focusing on hardware. It’s big innovation, says Reger, is its cloud-based software platform, dubbed the ‘Neuraverse’. Neura’s partners and customers — other tech and robotics companies, special machine providers, system integrators and consultants — can use the system to develop their own robotic applications. This is also the knowledge base that trains Neura’s robots. Reger compares it to gaming with a huge group of players.
“If you’re a gamer, you can always choose the mode where you’re playing alone, or you can play with your friends, or you can play with a million users around the world. And that’s how our data model is built,” he says. “And that’s how the robots get smarter: if you play with the wider world, you have much more data and many more skills available that you can learn.”
With a plethora of products keeping him busy, Reger admits that investors often ask him: “Why can’t you just focus on one thing?”
Neura’s customers
Neura Robotics currently sells to other businesses, and its biggest customers include Japanese aerospace company Kawasaki, which is already selling Neura’s cobots (ones that directly interact with humans). It also sells its products as a white label good to big corporations that have established worldwide sales channels.
“That’s why we’re scaling much faster than all the others,” says Reger.
Neura Robotics made €33m in revenue in 2022, its latest filing, and Reger says it wants to achieve three digit million next year. It already has an orderbook of €1bn.
The company’s big vision is for robots to accompany humans in all areas of life, and it hopes to one day sell directly to consumers who want a robot companion to help them with tasks in the home.
Neura Robotics has so far raised $157m, including a $55m round in July last year from investors such as HV Capital and Munich-based deeptech investor Vsquared. The company said it was going to use some of that round to speed up its expansion in the US and Japan.
It’s one of a number of European robotics players to have attracted investor interest in the last few years. Others include Norwegian AI startup 1X, which makes AI-powered two-legged robot butler, and ETH spinout ANYbotics, which produces four-legged autonomous robots for use in industrial applications. In Europe, funding for robotics startups increased from €2bn in 2023 to €2.1bn in 2024, according to Dealroom.
Why build a robotics company in Germany?
While Reger sees huge potential in Germany as a robotics location, he admits it may have been easier to build in a place like the US, where it is easier to raise capital. The US is home to companies working on humanoid robots like Boston Dynamics and Figure, which in February raised $75.5m for its full-bodied humanoid robot driven by generative AI. (Though investors have noted that Europe could have an upper hand when it comes to applying AI to manufacturing, and in particular robotics.)
“It actually would have made sense to build a company in Silicon Valley because the amount of capital you have there is completely different to Europe,” says Reger. “But it’s not all about capital.”
When he decided to found Neura Robotics in 2019, Reger moved back to Germany from Switzerland. One of the reasons for this was the substantial talent pool in Germany, he says, with experts hailing from all over the world. He picked Metzingen, a city in the state of Badem-Württemberg, not far from the city of Stuttgart, which is home to industrial players like Porsche and Daimler.
“To build super complex technology, especially a multipurpose device like a humanoid, you need to have access to all the right talent also from outside Germany,” says Reger, adding that during some months this year, the company received up to 2,000 job applications.
Germany has the right ingredients to be a competitive location for robotics, says Reger. It has strong industrial and manufacturing prowess — the ‘Made in Germany’ trademark is still recognised worldwide — excellent universities and research institutions and high robot adoption rates.
Germany’s 415 industrial robots for every 10k employees puts the country third in the world for robot adoption after South Korea and Singapore, according to the International Federation of Robots. Germany is also one of the five major markets globally for industrial robots.
Reger says robotics could be the “new economic pillar” that Germany needs, especially during a period where its economy is suffering. But the country is dragging its heels in designing one. Unlike China, which has a dedicated strategy to use robots as a driver for economic growth, Germany has not yet decided on its own direction for robotics.
Reger says Germany’s robotics strategy could include elements such as a more favourable regulatory environment for robotics startups, big investment in R&D in the area of cognitive robots driven by public and private investors and a public awareness campaign to highlight the opportunities and importance of robotics.
Naturally, clear political commitment to create such a strategy is crucial, he adds.
Germany’s expertise in hardware and software honed over decades within the automotive industry — where precision sensors, automation and robotics have traditionally played a significant role — gives it a “unique opportunity” to be a leading robotics hub, an opportunity that Reger hopes the government will take note of.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/neura-robotics-germany/
