Kicking things off<\/span> with a big funding round for AMP Robotics this week for a couple of reasons, but when push comes to shove, it comes down to something really simple: There are a lot of great reasons to be bullish on automation and there are a lot of equally great reasons to be bullish on climate tech. If you can manage to position yourself right in the middle of that Venn diagram, you\u2019re probably sitting pretty right now.<\/p>\n There are caveats, of course. There are always caveats. A big, scary bear market is the most immediate. We\u2019ve alluded to current and coming layoffs in recent editions of this newsletter, and the truth is that there are going to be a lot more before we\u2019re on the other side of this.<\/p>\n As bright as your category is long-term, no one exists outside these macro trends. I certainly wouldn\u2019t want to be in the position of raising a round to keep the lights on at my startup as the headwinds grow stronger. The days of the nine-digit Series A seem to have mostly drawn to a close for the foreseeable future, and I\u2019m accordingly hearing more reports of decreased headcounts.<\/p>\n But if I had to choose a tech startup space to ride this out in, climate and automation would be at or near the top. To steal a paragraph from Connie\u2019s recent interview with Chris Sacca:<\/p>\n [Climate investing] is recession proof, even without the IRA. Everything we\u2019re doing is providing a substitute good. That\u2019s what almost feels unfair. You spend years building Twitter and you put it up in the app store and you hope somebody gives a damn. It could be a really well-designed product, but maybe no one cares, whereas everything we\u2019re building right now, we actually know the demand for it. And if we deliver a better, cheaper, faster, cooler, easier-to-use, sexier product, then we\u2019ll even grow the market. So I actually think this is some of the easiest investing we\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n From where I sit, \u201crecession proof\u201d seems a little hyperbolic in the near term, but climate disaster isn\u2019t a thing of the future. We\u2019re living with it \u2014 and have been for some time. There are going to be plenty of bandwagon jumpers and green washers in the interim, but if you\u2019ve got good vision and better vetting, the right climate-focused technology might be as close to a sure thing as you\u2019re going to get as an investor.<\/p>\n Ditto for robotics and automation for reasons we\u2019ve outlined plenty of times over the last couple of years. Find the right solution for the right problem, and you might one day be looking at your own $91 million Series C. I\u2019m far from a technological utopianist, and my feelings on the future of climate change are a lot darker than I\u2019m comfortable discussing here. It certainly doesn\u2019t help to prep for all of this by reading a recent Greenpeace report that notes, \u201cThe plastics, packaging, and recycling industries have waged a decades-long misinformation campaign to perpetuate the myth that plastic is recyclable.\u201d<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> AMP Robotics<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s important to be pragmatic to a fault here. We don\u2019t do ourselves any favors by sugarcoating the size and scope of the current crisis. Nor do we have much to gain by going full doomer. Somewhere between the two exists the possibilities of achievable solutions. None will fix the problem, but if we\u2019re lucky, the right one could serve to mitigate things.<\/p>\n Recycling robotics firm AMP\u2019s latest raise follows a sizable $55 million Series B raised in January of last year. Congruent Ventures and Wellington Management led this massive $91 million round, which also features participation from Blue Earth Capital, Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners, Tao Capital Partners, XN, Sequoia Capital, GV, Range Ventures, and Valor Equity Partners.<\/p>\n \u201cAdvancements in robotics and automation are accelerating the transformation of traditional infrastructure, and AMP is seeking to reshape the waste and recycling industries,\u201d said Wellington\u2019s Michael DeLucia. \u201cBy bringing digital intelligence to the recycling industry, AMP can sort waste streams and extract additional value beyond what is otherwise possible.\u201d<\/p>\n All of this comes with the standard caveat that there are truly no surefire bets in this \u2014 or any \u2014 industry. There are still a million difficult to quantify factors, from timing to competition to sheer luck, which play a role in a product\u2019s success. The more companies that enter a space, the more more failure we\u2019ll ultimately see. Though, that\u2019s kind of the deal with early stage investment \u2014 no one gets it right 100% of the time. But a few perfectly timed investments can make a career.<\/p>\n The upshot of facing an impossibly large, seemingly insurmountable problem (if one can say such a thing) is that there\u2019s still a ton of problems that need the right minds to tackle them. There are a million oversaturated categories in automation right now. Filtering out all of the aforementioned greenwashing, the same can\u2019t be said for climate. It \u201calmost feels unfair,\u201d to steal a line from Sacca.<\/p>\n Frankly, it\u2019s also a space I\u2019d love to see more of the bigger names operate in. Take Google, for example. The company had a big AI day here in NYC this week, showcasing some of its work in the category. Google has investments in both climate and automation, and it would be great to see these sorts of companies working to solve big problems with big ideas. Gaining advantages to move e-commerce to a same-day delivery model is all well and good, but ordering all of the sunscreen on Amazon isn\u2019t going to do you much good in the face of true climate catastrophe.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Google<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Google for Good did take centerstage at the event, however, with the company demonstrating how advances to ML are being used for the very important work of monitoring wildfires and floods. It\u2019s also worth highlighting some of the company\u2019s efforts in robotic learning. Code as Policies (CaP) is a newly announced effort to teach robots to effectively code themselves.<\/p>\n Google researchers note:<\/p>\n With CaP, we propose using language models to directly write robot code through few-shot prompting. Our experiments demonstrate that outputting code led to improved generalization and task performance over directly learning robot tasks and outputting natural language actions. CaP allows a single system to perform a variety of complex and varied robotic tasks without task-specific training.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Labrador<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Meanwhile, I\u2019ve long admired Labrador Systems\u2019 efforts to use robotics to aid independent living, and it\u2019s nice to see the company\u2019s Retriever robots begin to roll out in select markets.<\/p>\n \u201cThe burden on caregivers is growing at a rate that is simply not sustainable. Organizations are already experiencing major caregiver shortages, and in the coming years there will be significantly more people in my parents\u2019 age group (85+) with fewer people to help take care of them,\u201d CEO Mike Dooley said in a release tied to the news. \u201cOur mission is to provide relief on both sides of that equation, empowering individuals who need care to do more on their own while extending the impact of each caregiver\u2019s visit well beyond the time they are physically present.\u201d<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Galen Robotics<\/p>\n<\/div>\n One more round of note before we close out for the week. Galen Robotics announced a $15 million round for its surgical system. \u201cThere are surgeons out there that have really no robotic assistance at all,\u201d CEO Bruce Lichorowic notes. \u201cSo you have surgeons out there that are doing everything still by hand, using their training to keep their tremor under control to keep themselves stable. Our goal is to see if we can assist them in these areas where there\u2019s really no help today.\u201d<\/p>\n That it for this week. As I noted in the last newsletter, I\u2019m heading back to Boston for a few days next week to meet with researchers and startups. I\u2019m fairly booked at this point, but may be able to carve out time for the right project.<\/p>\n\n
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