12월 20, 2019

Countdown to a new decade! 10 times Neo the commercial floor-scrubbing robot made the news in 2019!

It’s the end of the year, so everyone at Avidbots is in a reflective mood looking back at all the amazing accomplishments the company and its commercial floor-scrubbing robot have achieved in the last 12 months.

So what was Avidbots up to in 2019? Here’s a glimpse of our biggest news.

#10

February 2019: Avidbots signed partnerships with distributors in South Korea and Finland. In South Korea, Avidbots signed a partnership with Daeduck International. In Finland, we signed a deal with Rotator Oy. These distributors both face the challenge of a tight labor market and a lack of workers willing to take low-skilled jobs. Neo will help companies keep their facilities clean and retain maintenance staff.

#9

March 2019: Avidbots announced a $23.6 million Series B financing round backed by leading Silicon Valley VCs GGV Capital, True Ventures and Next47. Our funding round was covered by dozens of media outlets, but the most important story was a feature in Forbes that told the whole story of how Avidbots got started, how we’ve grown in commercial floor scrubbing, and where we’re headed.

#8

May 2019: We’re big in Japan! Neo was already cleaning floors at Kansai airport, several malls and an office building in Japan. In May, we announced that Neo would start cleaning Shibuya Station, the second largest railway station in the world with over 1 billion passengers moving through its massive hallways each year. With Neo’s sophisticated built-in AI, the robot can easily navigate through busy areas, avoiding obstacles and autonomously re-routing its pathways on the fly.

#7

June 2019: We announced a partnership with distributor Frisk Renhold AS to distribute Neo commercial floor-scrubbing robots across Norway. In this highly-developed country where labor costs are some of the most elevated in the world, and few of the country’s educated citizens want to do cleaning jobs, Neo will help companies solve the maintenance labor shortage challenge. Neo will soon be cleaning factories, malls, universities, airports, office buildings and other locations in Norway.

#6

July 2019: This month, Avidbots was honored to be named a Great Place to Work! We also launched in Israel, with our distribution partner Innox Robotics, a division of logistics services company Mehola, kicking off sales to Mehola’s 1,700 commercial and governmental customers, which include Israel’s two largest shopping mall chains, the leading grocery store company, airports and hospitals.

#5

August 2019: Canadian Manufacturing magazine wrote about how Neo is a welcomed cleaning team member in a manufacturing center. In busy factories, Neo can work in all areas, even those off-limits to humans due to the presence of heavy machinery. Using the 24/7 video feed on Neo’s web-based Command Center software, facilities managers can also see spills in real-time, quickly dispatching Neo to clean up messes, which can be especially dangerous in manufacturing centers due to oil, chemicals or other substances making floors slippery or toxic.

#4

August 2019: Avidbots also announced a partnership with HHS to deploy Neo commercial floor-scrubbing robots at acute-care hospitals across the US, proving that Neo is adapted to many environments, such as hospitals, manufacturing centers, airports, universities, malls and warehouses.

#3

September 2019: DHL Supply Chain, a division of DHL, has over 200,000 employees and generates $14 billion a year in revenues by managing large warehouses all around the world. And, in September, DHL Supply Chain announced it was working with Avidbots to bring Neo commercial floor-scrubbing robots to many of these warehouses in North America. At a big media event, DHL showed off Neo in action, demonstrating to logistics reporters from around the world how well-suited Neo is to busy warehouse environments. We’re continuing to work closely with DHL to roll out Neo in many warehouses.

#2

October 2019: DHL was so impressed with Neo’s AI-enabled cleaning capabilities, they decided to install Neo commercial floor-scrubbing robots in their three Innovation Centers, which showcase the innovative technologies DHL is deploying across its entire 500,000-person logistics workforce worldwide. After rolling Neo out in the Bonn, Germany Innovation Center, DHL announced it would install Neo at the Chicago and Singapore centers by year-end.

#1

November 2019: The Avidbots crew met with hundreds of potential customers at the ISSA Show North America, showing off Neo to thousands of event visitors. Over 16,000 cleaning industry professionals attended the ISSA Show and many demonstrated great interest in Neo, with the number of visitors to our booth doubling over last year. In November, we also announced our European distributor Swisscom is providing multiple Neo robots to facility services company ISS, one of the world’s largest facilities management companies that provides maintenance services to over 200,000 global customers. With partners like ISS and Swisscom, the largest telecom and technology provider in Switzerland with nearly 20,000 employees, Avidbots will soon be the leading provider of commercial floor-scrubbing robots in Europe.

What’s next for Neo the commercial floor-scrubbing robot in 2020? Avidbots has many more big announcements in the next few months.

Happy holidays and a very Happy New Year to all of Avidbots customers, fans, partners and followers!