Verity AG (Verity), creators of the first commercially successful inventory tracking solution powered by fully autonomous indoor drones, today announced completion of a 30M CHF ($32M USD) Series B funding round. The investment was led by A.P. Moller Holding with participation from Exor Ventures and existing and new investors.
This funding allows Verity to quickly scale up operations to address the growing backlog of deployments with systems already installed in 30 sites across 13 countries on 3 continents.
Supply chain automation has become a top priority for third-party logistics providers (3PLs), retailers, and manufacturers to address business-critical logistics challenges. Inventory management is a prime use case for automation: manual inventory scanning is costly and laborious, and errors frequently lead to lost productivity and sales. Verity’s system allows users to fully automate the manual scanning process, using self-flying warehouse drones that require no operator and can fly in the dark.
The new round of funding comes at a time of significant momentum for Verity. In response to increased demand, the company is expanding into international markets and is actively recruiting across the organization. The proven benefits of Verity’s system have been hailed by Verity’s flagship clients in the 3PL, manufacturing, and retail space, with a combined footprint of over 1,500 warehouses. The Verity system offers a proven, automated solution to the more than 150,000 warehouses worldwide that still rely on manual inventory checks.
“The completion of our Series B funding round is an important nod to the value our system provides to clients, and it demonstrates investor confidence in our industry-leading solution and team,” said Verity Founder and CEO, Raffaello D’Andrea. “We are especially pleased to welcome A.P. Moller Holding as a key investor in Verity, a global influencer committed to supporting companies that are delivering supply chain excellence and a positive impact on the environment.”
A pioneer in autonomous systems, D’Andrea also co-founded Kiva Systems, which was acquired by Amazon in 2012 and rebranded as Amazon Robotics.
Chetan Mehta, Head of Growth Investing at A.P. Moller Holding, said
“Raff has been at the forefront of automation technology for decades and we are excited to partner with him and the Verity team and help accelerate growth. The company’s unique fully automated solution is popular with customers and is generations ahead of competitors. We believe the company is poised for significant further expansion in the years ahead—particularly given the significant push towards warehouse automation and supply chain efficiency around the world.”
The Zurich-based firm was founded way back in 2014, with the promise of an automated solution that can work around the clock tracking products — one of the most time- and resource-intensive tasks in a warehouse.
Verity appears to have been cruising along just fine for the past five years. The company lists Samsung’s SDS unit and logistics firm DSV as clients. IKEA’s Swiss wing has also been implementing the technology since 2021. The furniture brand says it has 100 of Verity’s drones operating across 16 locations located in Belgium, Croatia, Slovakia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
“We are investing in technology across the board so that our stores can better support customer fulfillment and become true centers for omnichannel retailing,” says Tolga Öncu of Dutch IKEA holding company INGKA. “Introducing drones and other advanced tools — such as, for example, robots for picking up goods — is a genuine win-win for everybody. It improves our co-workers’ well-being, lowers operational costs and allows us to become more affordable and convenient for our customers.”
Sources: Press Release; TechCrunch
[See also:IKEA Retail now has 100 Drones for Stock Inventory ]