​October 25, 2019
Fabric, formerly known as Common Sense Robotics, has announced that they raised a $110M series B round. The Israeli based startup plans to use the money to fund expansion within the US. In addition, the company has moved its headquarters from Tel Aviv to New York City. ​This funding round was led by Corner Ventures with participation from Aleph, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Innovation Endeavors, La Maison, Playground Ventures and Temasek. ​Total raised to date is $136 million.
The company plans to build up to 14 micro fulfillment centers within the US, and expand it’s US-based engineering, sales and support teams.
“No longer a robotics company”
​Fabric doesn’t sell individual mobile robots. In fact with the recent rebranding of Fabric, from “Common Sense Robotics”, the company has removed the word “Robotics” from it’s name. The reasoning, accoring to CEO/co-founder Elram Goren, is that robotics isn’t what they do, but rather a means to end. Fabric building micro fulfillment centers, primarily for grocery, which can be constructed with a minimums of floor space. The system uses autonomous mobile robots to move totes between a vertical automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS) and the pack out stations for a customers’ order.
​Fabric offers the complete fulfillment solution in a “Robots as a Service” (Raas) offering. Customers of Fabric pay a per shipment fee for every shipment that goes out the door. This eliminates the upfront capital expenditure that would be necessary in a classic automation deployment solution.
