Robotics investments need to pick up pace in Q3 to reach same level as 2019 and 2023

Robotics funding figures over time show the impact of pandemic and interest rates.

Private equity is sitting on $9.5 Trillion of ‘dry powder’.

Will robotics reach $20 Billion in equity investment in 2024? The ‘upwards and to the right’ narrative fitted robotics beautifully from 2010 to 2019, but from 2020 onwards investment has followed a more erratic pattern. Right now, I’m not confident that 2024 will equal or exceed 2022 levels, but if we equal or exceed 2019 or 2023, then we’re in the right spot. (2021 was just crazy)

Silicon Valley Robotics has been maintaining a dataset for robotics investment since 2010 which has successfully predicted investment growth for the last 12-13 years, so I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll have a big Q3-4. We’ll need to because on current trend we are falling behind. But it was the same in 2021, when the most investments took place in the final quarters.

TechCrunch shared their figures earlier this month “Robotics investments are gaining speed after post-pandemic slowdown” and although their robotics dataset is smaller, they see similar trends in funding. TechCrunch does reckon we’re on trend to beat 2023, and are recovering from the economic headwinds and post-pandemic business reopenings, based partly on the ‘white-hot’ humanoids category.

I’m looking into the meaning of some other figures, ie. the number of robotics companies and the percentage of early stage vs later stage, including the birth of the category of ‘seed stage startup’. Also, is VC where we should be looking for funding? Where has all the dry powder gone?