Have a Happy Holiday Season and Prosperous New Year!Firstly, is robotics Deep Tech as opposed to Tech or technology enabled? Sometimes Deep Tech is regarded as a science based startup, sometimes it is regarded as disruptive to the status quo, sometimes it is regarded just as slow and hard, capital intensive, with a long ROI horizon. Or as something that investors aren’t ready for yet. But the amount of money going into Deep Tech investing is increasing, and the pool of Deep Tech investors is increasing.Certainly sounds like robotics is Deep Tech, but some robot startups have an incremental solution that is easily marketed. Basically, better mousetraps. Whereas most of the new wave of robotics are really changing the way in which we do something, so it requires much more market preparation.For example, Rethink Robotics paved the way for all collaborative robot arms, but weren't able to hold on long enough to enjoy the benefits that other less collaborative robot arms (like Universal Robotics) were able to capitalize on. There's also a huge challenge right now in introducing more affordable robot arms into the market. Customers find it hard to believe that a new company has a better product when it's half the price. That means most of the market for the new wave of robot arms, will be new customers for robot arms. Factories who've already got robot arms from Kuka or ABB etc. will continue using the arms they know. They have no real incentive to change. Marketing is a much bigger problem for robotics than we might think.
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Investors warn Deep Tech startups of these 12…
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Have a Happy Holiday Season and Prosperous New Year!Firstly, is robotics Deep Tech as opposed to Tech or technology enabled? Sometimes Deep Tech is regarded as a science based startup, sometimes it is regarded as disruptive to the status quo, sometimes it is regarded just as slow and hard, capital intensive, with a long ROI horizon. Or as something that investors aren’t ready for yet. But the amount of money going into Deep Tech investing is increasing, and the pool of Deep Tech investors is increasing.Certainly sounds like robotics is Deep Tech, but some robot startups have an incremental solution that is easily marketed. Basically, better mousetraps. Whereas most of the new wave of robotics are really changing the way in which we do something, so it requires much more market preparation.For example, Rethink Robotics paved the way for all collaborative robot arms, but weren't able to hold on long enough to enjoy the benefits that other less collaborative robot arms (like Universal Robotics) were able to capitalize on. There's also a huge challenge right now in introducing more affordable robot arms into the market. Customers find it hard to believe that a new company has a better product when it's half the price. That means most of the market for the new wave of robot arms, will be new customers for robot arms. Factories who've already got robot arms from Kuka or ABB etc. will continue using the arms they know. They have no real incentive to change. Marketing is a much bigger problem for robotics than we might think.