material-handling
(15)
Sukup Manufacturing Co.
A farmer’s improvised answer to spoiled corn became a 60-year Iowa manufacturing business. Sukup now sells the machinery around the grain bin - and is betting that tighter controls and automation will define what comes next.
Flexco
A tiny steel joint can decide whether a mine, bakery, or parcel hub keeps moving. Flexco has spent 119 years turning that vulnerable seam - and the rest of the conveyor - into a global business built around uptime.
Global Industrial Company
The 77-year-old distributor has turned the unglamorous work of keeping facilities supplied into a $1.38 billion business. Its next act is to make a sprawling catalog feel less like a warehouse and more like an expert on call.
XSQUARE Technologies
XSQUARE Technologies is a Singapore-based intralogistics company that builds autonomous forklifts and the Xymphony warehouse orchestration software to automate warehouses without requiring reconfiguration. Founded in 2019 and backed by Goldbell Group's four decades of material-handling expertise, XSQUARE pairs its own line of AGVs with an AI-driven control layer, offered largely through a Robots-as-a-Service subscription model. Its clients include Coca-Cola, GSK and Katoen Natie, and it raised S$10.5 million in Series A funding in May 2024 led by Wavemaker Partners.
Conner Industries, Inc.
Conner Industries is a Fort Worth, Texas manufacturer and distributor of industrial lumber and custom, mixed-material packaging - wood pallets, crates, skids, foam, corrugate and plastic. Founded in 1981, it has grown into one of the largest players in U.S. industrial wood, running roughly 18 manufacturing sites across 14 states and reporting revenue near $200 million. Under CEO David Dixon, the company has pivoted from a commodity lumber business into an integrated packaging platform, using a string of acquisitions to add engineered protective packaging, foam fabrication and logistics services like 3PL, VMI and kitting.
Ati Motors
Ati Motors is an industrial robotics company building autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) that move material inside and around factories. Its Sherpa family of self-driving robots uses 3D lidar, high-precision mapping and AI - the same principles behind self-driving cars - to tug, lift and transport loads from about 500 kg to 4,600 kg without the magnetic tape or fixed guide-paths of older AGVs. Founded in Bengaluru in 2017 and now dual-headquartered with a North American base near Detroit, Ati has deployed robots at 50-70+ manufacturing plants worldwide - including Fortune 500 names such as Hyundai, Bosch, Forvia, Daimler and Airbus - logging over 500,000 autonomous kilometers. The company raised a $20M Series B in early 2025 to expand across North America and APAC.
GreyOrange
GreyOrange is a warehouse-automation company that builds AI software and mobile robots to run fulfillment operations for retailers, distributors and 3PLs. Its GreyMatter fulfillment operating system continuously optimizes decisions across a distribution center, orchestrating fleets of Ranger mobile robots, people and existing equipment to move goods, pick orders and manage inventory. Founded in India in 2011 and now headquartered in Atlanta, the company sells its technology outright or as a monthly robotics-as-a-service subscription, and has raised more than half a billion dollars from investors including Mithril Capital, Tiger Global and Blackstone-adjacent funds.
Andrew Meyer
Andrew (AJ) Meyer is the founder and CEO of Pickle Robot Company, a Boston-area startup building Physical AI robots that autonomously unload trucks. An MIT-trained engineer and serial founder, he watched fifteen people unload trailers on a freezing UPS night shift in 2018 and decided robots should do that job. Pickle's one-armed machines now pick boxes up to 50 pounds at speeds reaching 1,500 boxes an hour for customers like UPS and Yusen Logistics. In late 2024 the company closed a $50 million Series B, bringing total funding past $114 million.
Mark Messina
Mark Messina is Managing Director and CEO of ANSCER Robotics Americas, the U.S. arm of a Bengaluru-based hybrid autonomous mobile robot company. With more than 25 years across engineering, manufacturing and operations, he helped build the modern warehouse-robot industry from the inside - joining Amazon during the Kiva Systems acquisition, later working on Amazon Prime Air drones, IoT at Mattel, and leading U.S. expansions for Geek+ and Addverb. He now runs ANSCER's Austin, Texas headquarters, championing a frugal, ROI-first approach to robotics and a Robots-as-a-Service model built to put automation within reach of small operators.
Third Wave Automation
Third Wave Automation builds autonomous high-reach forklifts powered by its Shared Autonomy Platform, which lets a single warehouse vehicle switch between fully autonomous, remote-assist, remote-operated, and manual modes. Founded by robotics veterans from Toyota Research Institute and Google, the Union City, California company pairs AI-driven reach trucks with its Armada fleet management software so one remote operator can supervise up to ten machines - helping 3PLs and warehouse operators address labor shortages, improve safety, and reach payback in under a year.
ANSCER Robotics
ANSCER Robotics is a Bengaluru-based industrial automation company that builds hybrid autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) blending the smart navigation of AMRs with the heavy-lift precision of automated guided vehicles. Its robots and fleet-management software move materials inside factories, warehouses and dock areas, sold partly on a Robots-as-a-Service model. After a $5.4M Series A in 2026 led by IAN Alpha Fund, the company is expanding from India and Southeast Asia into North America.
Pickle Robot Company
Pickle Robot Company builds Physical AI systems that autonomously unload trucks, trailers, and import containers of non-palletized goods at human-scale or better. Founded in 2018 and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Pickle pairs a multi-camera vision system with generative AI foundation models trained on millions of real warehouse data points, mounting a KUKA arm on a custom mobile base that drives into a trailer and clears it in roughly 90 minutes. The company is on a mission to automate inbound and outbound work at one million warehouse doors over the next decade.
Mytra
Mytra is a Bay Area robotics company building a software-defined material handling system that uses identical bots moving through a 3D modular lattice to store, sequence and ship warehouse inventory. Founded by ex-Tesla and Rivian leaders Chris Walti and Ahmad Baitalmal in 2022, Mytra has raised roughly $198M (including a $120M Series C in January 2026) and counts Albertsons among its production customers.
Chris Walti
Chris Walti is co-founder and CEO of Mytra, the Brisbane, CA-based robotics company rebuilding industrial material flow from the software up. Before founding Mytra in 2022, he spent 7.5 years at Tesla leading Model 3 material flow engineering, building the company's internal mobile robotics team, and becoming the first lead of what would become the Optimus humanoid robot program. Mytra has since raised $198M in total funding including a $120M Series C in January 2026, and its 3D robotic storage systems are deployed at Albertsons distribution centers, delivering up to 88% labor hour savings versus conventional solutions.
Arshan Poursohi
Arshan Poursohi is the CEO and Co-Founder of Third Wave Automation, a Union City, California-based robotics company building autonomous high-reach forklifts powered by a proprietary Shared Autonomy Platform. Drawing on research stints at Sun Microsystems Laboratories, Google Robotics, and Toyota Research Institute, Poursohi co-founded Third Wave in 2018 with the conviction that warehouse automation should enhance - not replace - human judgment. The company has raised over $82 million from investors including Woven Capital (Toyota's growth fund), Norwest Venture Partners, Innovation Endeavors, Qualcomm Ventures, and Zebra Technologies, and its TWA Reach forklifts now operate commercially in warehouses across the U.S.