The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Hyster-Yale Materials Handling today announced its plans to fulfill the domestic manufacturing requirements of the Build America, Buy America (BABA) Act for certain portions of its lineup of forklift trucks and container handling equipment.
That means the Greenville, North Carolina-based company now plans to expand its existing American manufacturing with a targeted set of high-capacity models, including electric options, that align with the needs of infrastructure projects subject to BABA requirements. The company’s plans include determining the optimal production location in the United States, strategically expanding sourcing agreements to meet local material requirements, and further developing electric power options for high-capacity equipment.
As a part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the BABA Act aims to increase the use of American-made materials in federally funded infrastructure projects across the U.S., Hyster-Yale says. It was enacted as part of a broader effort to boost domestic manufacturing and economic growth, and mandates that federal dollars allocated to infrastructure – such as roads, bridges, ports and public transit systems – must prioritize materials produced in the USA, including critical items like steel, iron and various construction materials.
Hyster-Yale’s footprint in the U.S. is spread across 10 locations, including three manufacturing facilities.
“Our leadership is fully invested in meeting the needs of businesses that require BABA-compliant material handling solutions,” Tony Salgado, Hyster-Yale’s chief operating officer, said in a release. “We are working to partner with our key domestic suppliers, as well as identifying how best to leverage our own American manufacturing footprint to deliver a competitive solution for our customers and stakeholders. But beyond mere compliance, and in line with the many areas of our business where we are evolving to better support our customers, our commitment remains steadfast. We are dedicated to delivering industry-leading standards in design, durability and performance — qualities that have become synonymous with our brands worldwide and that our customers have come to rely on and expect.”
Global forklift sales have slumped in 2024, falling short of initial forecasts as a result of the struggling economy in Europe and the slow release of project funding in the U.S., a report from market analyst firm Interact Analysis says.
In response, the London-based firm has reduced its shipment forecast for the year to rise just 0.3%, although it still predicts consistent growth of around 4-5% out to 2034.
The “bleak” figures come as the European economy has stagnated during the second half of 2024, with two of the leading industry sectors for forklifts - automotive and logistics – struggling. In addition, order backlogs from the pandemic have now been absorbed, so order volumes for the global forklift market will be slightly lower than shipment volumes over the next few years, Interact Analysis said.
On a more positive note, 3 million forklifts are forecast to be shipped per year by 2031 as enterprises are forced to reduce their dependence on manual labor. Interact Analysis has observed that major forklift OEMs are continuing with their long-term expansion plans, while other manufacturers that are affected by demand fluctuations are much more cautious with spending on automation projects.
At the same time, the forklift market is seeing a fundamental shift in power sources, with demand for Li-ion battery-powered forklifts showing a growth rate of over 10% while internal combustion engine (ICE) demand shrank by 1% and lead-acid battery-powered forklift fell 7%.
And according to Interact Analysis, those trends will continue, with the report predicting that ICE annual market demand will shrink over 20% from 670,000 units in 2024 to a projected 500,000 units by 2034. And by 2034, Interact Analysis predicts 81% of fully electric forklifts will be powered by li-ion batteries.
The reasons driving that shift include a move in Europe to cleaner alternatives to comply with environmental policies, and a swing in the primary customer base for forklifts from manufacturing to logistics and warehousing, due to the rise of e-commerce. Electric forklift demand is also growing in emerging markets, but for different reasons—labor costs are creating a growing need for automation in factories, especially in China, India, and Eastern Europe. And since lithium-ion battery production is primarily based in Asia, the average cost of equipping forklifts with li-ion batteries is much lower than the rest of the world.
The number of shipments of mobile robots will rise from 547,000 units in 2023 to 2.79 million by 2030, as customers expand applications from the current typical use case in warehousing and logistics to new tasks in manufacturing, last-mile delivery, agriculture, and healthcare, according to a report from technology analyst firm ABI.
That steep expansion would add up to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.1% by units, and CAGR of 23.6% by revenue, as sales are forecasted to rise from $18 billion to $124 billion by 2030.
“Mobile robots are a very valuable category of robot which have completely transformed warehousing and logistics in recent years,” George Chowdhury, Robotics Industry Analyst at ABI Research, said in a release. “For material handling alone, mobile robots offer enterprises transformative efficiency improvements. Driven by the evolution of supporting technologies such as Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), mobile robots can be deployed in diverse and dynamic environments, presenting new horizons to stakeholders and bringing efficiency improvements to under-automated economic sectors such as agriculture and healthcare.”
While warehousing and logistics will remain the primary adopters, other market verticals will see accelerated uptake by the decade's end, the report said. Shipments catering for agriculture deployments will rise from 7,000 to 129,000 per year by 2030; shipments for delivery will grow from 14,000 to 147,000; and public-facing applications will increase as the use of mobile robots within restaurants progress from 6,000 in 2023 to 78,000 shipments in 2030.
According to ABI, that change will occur as other industries begin to benefit from the decreasing costs, greater versatility, and simplified programmability that vendors are bringing to the mobile robot market. Sorted by market, those vendors include MiR, Omron, Otto Motors, and ABB for intralogistics within manufacturing; companies such as Zebra, Locus, and Safelog for marketing; Simbe and Brain Corp for retail; and Starship for last-mile delivery market.
“Mobile robots will remain the most popular form of robot, and shipments will continue to increase across economies as the benefits of augmenting existing business practices with automation become clear to decision-makers,” Chowdhury said. “As trust in Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) technologies grows, we will increasingly see mobile robots in public spaces. Hospitals, agriculture, retail stores, and last-mile delivery are all nearing readiness for the mass adoption of mobile robots.”
As the workhorse of the warehouse, the forklift typically gets all the tough jobs and none of the limelight. That finally changed recently, when a 46-year-old truck made headlines by winning the “Oldest Toyota Forklift Contest.”
The contest was organized by Intella Parts LLC, a Holland, Michigan-based supplier of aftermarket forklift parts for Toyota as well as other brands like Yale, Taylor, CAT, and Hyster lift trucks. This year’s winner was a 1978-vintage Toyota 42-3FGC20, a gas-powered forklift built in Toyota’s factory in Takahama-shi, Aichi, Japan. Alexander Toolsie of Burlington, Ontario, submitted the winning entry and was awarded a $100 gift certificate for Toyota forklift parts at Intella and a $100 Visa gift card.
The competition follows a similar contest held last year, when Intella launched a search for the oldest running Hyster forklift. The winner was a 1945 Hyster model that’s still in use at Public Steel in Amarillo, Texas.
According to Intella, the contests have been so popular that it plans to expand the competition to additional forklift brands next year.
Motion Industries Inc., a Birmingham, Alabama, distributor of maintenance, repair and operation (MRO) replacement parts and industrial technology solutions, has agreed to acquire International Conveyor and Rubber (ICR) for its seventh acquisition of the year, the firms said today.
ICR is a Blairsville, Pennsylvania-based company with 150 employees that offers sales, installation, repair, and maintenance of conveyor belts, as well as engineering and design services for custom solutions.
From its seven locations, ICR serves customers in the sectors of mining and aggregates, power generation, oil and gas, construction, steel, building materials manufacturing, package handling and distribution, wood/pulp/paper, cement and asphalt, recycling and marine terminals. In a statement, Kory Krinock, one of ICR’s owner-operators, said the deal would enhance the company’s services and customer value proposition while also contributing to Motion’s growth.
“ICR is highly complementary to Motion, adding seven strategic locations that expand our reach,” James Howe, president of Motion Industries, said in a release. “ICR introduces new customers and end markets, allowing us to broaden our offerings. We are thrilled to welcome the highly talented ICR employees to the Motion team, including Kory and the other owner-operators, who will continue to play an integral role in the business.”
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. But the deal marks the latest expansion by Motion Industries, which has been on an acquisition roll during 2024, buying up: hydraulic provider Stoney Creek Hydraulics, industrial products distributor LSI Supply Inc., electrical and automation firm Allied Circuits, automotive supplier Motor Parts & Equipment Corporation (MPEC), and both Perfetto Manufacturing and SER Hydraulics.