Terex Makes Equity Investment in Robotics Firm Apptronik Inc.
Terex Corp. last week announced it has made an equity investment in Apptronik Inc., an Austin, Texas-based company specializing in the development of versatile, mobile robotic systems whose goal is to bring forth the next generation of robots that will change the way people live and work. Separate from the equity investment, the two companies have entered into a co-development agreement to work together to create potential robotic applications for Terex products.
"Multiple trends are converging to drive adoption of human-centered robots in everyday applications and Apptronik is well positioned to capitalize on this emerging trend," said Terex chairman and CEO John Garrison.
Apptronik's co-founders have worked on some of the most advanced human-centered systems in the world. This includes the NASA Valkyrie Robot for the DARPA Robotics Challenge. Other Apptronik projects include Astra, an upper-body humanoid robot that has state-of-the-art actuation packed into a small form, enabling it to be placed on any mobility platform – and, most recently, Apollo, a NASA-backed versatile humanoid designed to scale and apply to numerous applications.
"We are at an inflection point in the robotics industry where, in just a few years, we expect to see general-purpose robots being adopted at scale across numerous industries," said Jeff Cardenas, CEO and co-founder of Apptronik. "We are excited to be working with Terex Corp., as we blaze the trail for the robotics revolution that we anticipate will transform the way we live and work."
Apptronik is a robotics company that has built a platform to deliver a variety of general-purpose robots. The company was founded in 2016 out of the Human Centered Robotics Lab at the University of Texas at Austin, with a mission to leverage innovative technology for the betterment of society. Its goal is to introduce the next generation of robots that will change the way people live and work, while tackling some of our world's largest challenges. To learn more about careers at Apptronik, visit https://apptronik.com/careers/.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.