Bear Robotics closes $81M Series B funding round

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Bear Robotics raised $81 million in Series B funding to accelerate the use of autonomous robots in the hospitality and service industry. To date, Bear Robotics has raised $117 million, which includes a $32 million Series A funding found led by SoftBank in 2020.

The company’s flagship product, Servi, is an autonomous mobile robot (AMR) that can run drinks and food and aid in bussing tables. It also offers the Servi Mini, which was created for bar running, drink delivery and bussing.

Servi and Servi Mini can both navigate autonomously, able to work in a fleet with multiple robots and are able to automatically return to their posts after running food.

“Having started my own restaurant years ago, I learned firsthand just how hard things could get,” John Ha, Bear Robotics CEO and founder, said. “I thought there must be a way to automate some of these repetitive tasks without losing what makes a restaurant great. That’s why we created Servi. It’s a solution meant to enhance the experience of customers, employees, and operators. While others are trying to fully automate work, we’re trying to elevate the future of work for stakeholders in this industry that keep it going each day.”

IMM Investment Corp. led the most recent funding round. IMM is a Korean investment firm that focuses on venture capital, mezzanine and infrastructure. Cleveland Avenue and other existing investors also participated in the round.

Bear Robotics plans to use the funding to add new products to its line of serving robots, expand to new markets globally and hire new top talent.

“Achieving this next round of funding is a key milestone for us to be able to accelerate our product roadmap and expand our go-to-market initiatives with our partners. We’ve also been extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to help small and medium-sized businesses during the recent labor shortage, and look forward to our continued impact there,” Juan Higueros, Bear Robotics COO and co-founder, said.

Bear Robotics was founded in 2017 and is based in Redwood City, California. Servi is able to operate for up to 12 hours on a single four hour charge. So far, the robot has delivered to over 28 million tables and traveled over 335 thousand miles.