Every month Robotics Business Review compiles a list of private financing deals for robotics companies.
In April, as the world shut down for COVID-19, funding basically dried up.
“Robotics Business Review tracked about 26 transactions worth a total of more than $600 million last month, compared with 29 deals worth $2.7 billion in March 2020 and 30 transactions worth $6.5 billion in April 2019.”
Many of the April transactions that did occur were in China.
May, however, showed a meaningful uptick. May 2020 numbers were comparable to where they were a year ago, and at least in the same order of magnitude as the March 2020 figures.
“In May 2020, Robotics Business Review tracked 18 deals worth about $1.5 billion, compared with 26 robotics transactions worth more than $600 million in April 2020 and $1.5 billion in 27 transactions in May 2019.”
The May figures were led by huge funding rounds for Waymo and Didi. The rest of the May transactions totaled only $250 million.
For comparison, the May 2019 figures were even more concentrated, with the bulk of the month’s investments driven by a huge fundraising round for Cruise Automation.
I’m not quite ready to declare a return to normalcy yet, but it’s a big step in the right direction.
David Silver 