Bootstrapping Berry Bot: 'from revenue to robot'
Introducing some robotics companies that are boot strapping their way to success.
Berry Bot is a soap making robot, one of the growing number of beauty and wellness robotics startups, like Luum, Clockwork, NailBot, Yateou, 10Beauty etc. There are also the high end cosmetic robots, starting with massage robots, cosmetician or dental treatments like lasering, whitening and sculpting, and of course the original Artas, hair restoration robot.
According to Asian Robotics Review, the global personal care and beauty market is more than 10 times larger than the current global market for industrial robots, and yet, there are very few success stories yet.
$482 billion global personal care & beauty industry where robots are scarce. In comparison, the global market for industrial robots was $43.8 billion in 2021. Global personal care & beauty is over 10 larger than the market for industrial robots.
Another interesting facet of the beauty robot industry is half of the robot startups are currently female founded, but that might change as more money moves in.
Jessica Black, Founder and CEO of Berry Bot, started making natural soaps from her home to soothe her daughter’s eczema. She started selling the soaps to friends & family, and today she sells the soaps at Meijer stores as well as online. As Black started to produce larger quantities of soap, she noticed the scalability issues with natural soap production. With a background in manufacturing, Black saw the automation potential.
The Berry Bot is a novel smart automated system to make natural cold process soaps. This smart machine is designed to help soap makers scale up their production. The Berry Bot will reduce production for professional soap maker from 3 hours down to 15 min or less.
Right now, Berry Bot is generating revenue through natural soap sales and either needs some seed funding or to sell more soap in order to produce the first batch of professional soap making machines. They already have a healthy waitlist of professional natural soap makers ready to purchase.
Now the race is on… seed funding or more soap sales!
Which will triumph?
Berry Bot is open to the right funding offer and I’ve included select slides for investors, but it’s also refreshing to see robotics companies creating alternative growth pathways.
Some additional notes about recent beauty robots:
10Beauty, creator of the first full salon-quality manicure machine, announced it will launch at the end of this year, having secured $38 million in equity financing, including a newly closed $17 million extension to their Series A led by Shine Capital.
WHO: Alex Shashou and Justin Effron co-founded 10Beauty and serve as Co-CEOs. Shashou and Effron previously founded ALICE, a B2B hospitality software platform acquired by Expedia Group, Inc. for $130 million. Chris Casey, co-founder and CTO, is a robotics expert with more than 25 years' experience in developing consumer robotics. He was on the original team that invented the Roomba robot vacuum for iRobot, where he spent 13 years.
10Beauty is leveraging robotics and automation to reimagine how people interact with machines to receive beauty services. The company's first product, "The 10," can perform a full manicure without human intervention. Insert in a pod, customize the manicure on a mobile app, slip in your hand, and let the machine remove the polish, file and shape the nails, brush away the cuticles, apply new polish, and dry the final product. The full manicure process takes roughly as long as a traditional manicure but on the customer's timetable.
The company employs roughly 30 engineers and plans to launch its first product, a fully automated salon-quality manicure machine, in the second half of 2024.
DETAILS:
10Beauty secured $38 million in equity financing, including a newly closed $17 million extension to their Series A led by Shine Capital.
Imaginary Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, and Red Sea Ventures led their previous funding rounds.
10Beauty's first 1,000 machines are sold out, as the company solidified pre-sale deals with four enterprise customers, including Nordstrom and Ulta Beauty, as well as dozens of high-end hair salons.
The company plans to install The 10 at 1,000 initial locations, representing a run rate of $13 million in annual manicure pod subscription revenue.
These partnerships have potential to eventually represent $50 million in revenue and a presence at 3,000 locations.
Via Beauty Matters
Robot Events
IEEE Workshop on Manufacturing for your Deep Tech and Robotics Startup
Do you have questions about any stage of your journey to manufacturing many? We connect you with experienced mentors in a series of q&a sessions. Also introducing the IEEE RAS Manufacturing Checklist - a comprehensive directory and resource.
Hosted by Silicon Valley Robotics at SRI International in Menlo Park
June 13 1pm to 5pm
https://robotstartupmfg.eventbrite.com
I’m also going to…
The Robotics Revolution - Automating the Factory of the Future and beyond - SVB - Tues June 4 5pm-8pm
California Aerospace Day - Sacramento - Wed June 5 12pm - 6pm
Create the Future Summit 2024 - Berkeley - Fri June 7 8.30am-7pm
Senior Living Innovation Forum - Palm Springs - Sun/Mon June 9-10
Robotics Invest - Boston - Tues/Wed June 11-12
Manufacturing Workshop for Robotics Startups - Menlo Park - Thur June 13
Xooglers GenAI & Robotics - Multiverse - Monday June 17
TYE Global Young Entrepreneurs - TriValley - June 19
Build Night, Fixit Clinic and Sewing @ Circuit Launch - Friday June 21
Some more robotics conferences:
ISMR (Medical Robotics) 2024 : Jun 03 - Jun 05, 2024 . Atlanta, Georgia, United States
AIM 2024 Boston MA 14 July - 18 July
RSS Delft NL July 15-19
EMBC Orlando FL July 15-19
Humanoid Robotics Festival Lima Peru Aug 14-15-16
CASE 2024 Puglia Italy 28 Aug - 1 Sep 2024
BioRob Heidelberg DE 1 Sep-Sep 4
Commercial UAV Expo : Sep 03 - Sep 05, 2024 . Las Vegas, United States of America
CLAWAR 2024 Kaiserslauten DE Sep 4 - Sep 6
Actuate Summit : Sep 18, 2024 . San Francisco, United States of America
ICRA@40 Rotterdam NL 23 Sep - 26 Sep
ANTS (Swarm robotics) 2024 : Oct 09 - Oct 11, 2024 . Konstanz, Germany
IROS 2024 AbuDhabi 14 Oct - 18 Oct
ROSCon Odense DK 21 Oct - 23 Oct
CORL Munich DE 6 Nov - 9 Nov
IEEE Future of Telepresence Pasadena CA 16 Nov - 17 Nov
Humanoids 2024 Nancy FR 26 Nov - 28 Nov
ProMat : Mar 17 - Mar 20, 2025 . Chicago, United States of America
ICRA 2025 Atlanta Georgia 17 May - 23 May 2025
Just for more fun!
After all, Panasonic built a hair washing robot back in 2010, so how hard can it be!
Andra,
Another cosmetic robotics company worth noting is RoboCosme - https://robocosme.com/ - which has developed an amazing technology for creating personalized cosmetics. They have overcome significant technical challenges and are now entering the market.