Against the backdrop of the high attention of the field of industrial robots, Augury recently announced a successful financing of US$75 million, with a market value exceeding US$1 billion. As a startup dedicated to developing AI hardware, Augury's technology can detect plant equipment failures and causes in real time, helping manufacturers reduce equipment downtime and improve production efficiency.
Augury CEO and founder Saar Yoskovitz revealed in an interview that the company's AI system has monitored more than 500 million hours of machine operation data, covering a variety of equipment and manufacturers. He vividly called this huge data set a "divide dictionary". With this data, Augury can eliminate the need to build models for specific devices, as they have observed the operation of more than 20,000 pumps.
The financing is the first part of Augusty's Series F funding, with the final total amount expected to reach $100 million. The lead investor in this financing is Lightrock, and other old shareholders involved include Insight Venture Partners, Eclipse, Qualcomm Ventures, etc. Since the last financing in 2021, Augury's revenue has increased fivefold, with its clients including well-known companies such as Pepsi, Nestlé, and DuPont.
Yoskovitz pointed out that the COVID-19 epidemic has prompted global supply chain management to enter the public eye, but the digital transformation process at the industrial level is relatively slow. Since industrial equipment usually lasts for decades, it is rarely replaced on a large scale while it is still functioning properly. This provides an entry point for Augury: through sensors monitoring the sound, vibration and temperature of the machine, Augury's algorithm can promptly determine whether the equipment has faults and specific problems, thereby providing guidance to factory maintenance personnel.
Currently, about 80% of customers are traditional manufacturing environments and 20% are newly built modern factories, although the latter usually lacks robotics. Despite the view that Augury's technology may replace certain jobs, Yoskovitz said the industry is actually facing the challenge of talent shortage, with older generations of technicians about to retire, and the new generation of workforce is not very interested in the manufacturing industry. Therefore, Augury hopes to use “digital knowledge” to help existing employees and future new employees better repair and maintain equipment.
One of the reasons why Lightrock chose to invest in Augury is its potential in sustainable development, especially in the current business environment where companies should pursue profits and pay attention to green development. Investing in Augury not only improves productivity, but also helps to extend the service life of the equipment, thus achieving the goal of environmental protection.