Robotics deep-tech startup CynLr raises seed funding

CynLr, a Bangalore-based robotics startup building visual object intelligence for industrial robots, has raised Rs 5.5 crore ($775,555) in seed round led by deep-tech venture capital investors Speciale Invest and Arali Ventures. 

CynLr will use the funds to drive research and development (R&D) and increase the adoption of its product, the company said in a statement. 

Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), a technology business incubator of IIM Ahmedabad, investor Vijay Kedia and early-stage investment firm GrowX Ventures also participated in the round, the company added.

CynLr, owned and operated by Vyuti Systems, was founded in 2015 by Gokul N A and Nikhil Ramaswamy, who were colleagues at the test and automation company National Instruments (NI). The startup offers manufacturing companies a universal machine-vision enabled robot platform that can sense and manipulate objects as humans do.

The startup claims it has executed over 30 custom-engineered, machine vision based robotic solutions for large manufacturing customers with a 100% attempt-to-success rate.

“Using the proven multi-dimensional image construction and analysis approach, CynLr believes that it will solve the robotic object manipulation problem that has been touted as the holy grail of robotics by the robotics community - a 30+ year old dream yet to see the light of the day. Customers for the first time in the history of automation would have access to robots that can reliably replace human beings in handling objects,” the founders said in a joint statement.

Customers can now deploy robots using the CynLr platform, without having to worry about custom designed fixtures and positioning systems, which are currently mandatory for every robot deployment, the company said. 

“We believe that CynLr’s approach of bringing together machine vision and AI will significantly enhance object intelligence for industrial robots, thus paving the way for greater penetration of robotics application across various industry segments,” said Rajiv Raghunandan, managing partner, Arali Ventures.

Bengaluru-based Speciale Invest is a seed stage venture capital firm focused on enterprise software products emerging from deep-tech in AR/VR, Cloud, Voice AI, Vision AI, image analytics and industrial hardware products emerging from deep-tech in propulsion tech, robotics, rocket engines to optical communication tech. 

Arali Ventures is a seed stage VC focused on startups leveraging deep-technologies such as AI/ML, VR/AR, robotics in order to build disruptive solutions for enterprises across the world. It is based in Bengaluru, Karnataka.