Vention closes a $95M USUD Series C financing

Since 2016, Vention has empowered high-mix manufacturers to implement industrial automation through cloud software and a modular hardware ecosystem. The self-serve platform combines a suite of easy-to-use engineering software and plug-and-play automation components, enabling manufacturing professionals to design, order, and deploy automated equipment by themselves directly from their web browser.

Vention’s clients save on costs associated with system integration services—typically a significant investment hurdle for small and medium businesses seeking to automate. Moreover, the single-platform approach to the design-to-deployment workflow cuts the usual project time from months to days, enabling clients to benefit from industrial automation much sooner than with traditional approaches.

By the numbers:

• Since Series B funding closed, annual growth has reached 2.9x as of Q1 2022.
• In the same timeframe, the company expanded its headcount from 100 to 260
• Vention currently serves 3,000+ discrete manufacturing clients across five continents.
• Over 12,000 pieces of manufacturing equipment have been designed and deployed using the Vention manufacturing automation platform.
• Since the company’s inception, the complexity of designs created on Vention has increased by 4x and now includes end-to-end robot cells, assembly lines, and automated equipment.

Proceeds from Series C financing will be used to grow Vention’s go-to-market, expand the company’s global distribution footprint, and accelerate the development of its hardware and software platform. The company expects to make some of those announcement’s public in September 2022 at its annual product launch event, Vention DemoDay.

“Democratizing industrial automation is an ambitious mission considering the $180B market. With 80% of manufacturing plants in the US having little to no automation, we’re at the dawn of a new era,” said Etienne Lacroix, CEO of Vention. “Current manufacturing floors are made of a multitude of robot arms, conveyors, sensors, and tooling equipment. Each component has its own compatibility standards, programming language, and point of sales. Vention has emerged as the one platform where clients can do it all: Design, Automate, Order, and Deploy. Such integration lowers the barrier to accessibility that is needed to democratize the industry.”

Today, Vention serves over 3,000+ clients through its offices in Montreal, Boston, and Berlin. Vention’s platform has horizontal coverage across many industries, inducing aerospace, automotive, industrial goods and machinery, medical devices, food and beverage, and construction material. Vention clients have used the platform to create everything from robot cells and assembly lines to proprietary automated equipment and tooling.

Each year, Vention adds new capabilities to its platform to serve a wider range of use cases. Most recently, it released code-free robot programming capabilities, which let users program their robot in the cloud, order the entire robot cell, and deploy it on their manufacturing floor entirely through the Vention platform. Such a level of integration provides a user experience that is unmatched in the industry.

“We are excited to deepen our partnership with Vention as they create new opportunities for manufacturers of all sizes to access industrial automation and robotics like never before,” said Emily Walsh, Lead Investor at Georgian. “We have seen first-hand how Vention delivers integrated software and hardware innovations, such as palletizing, conveyor and robot tending applications, that foundationally transform their customers’ manufacturing operations. Georgian looks forward to continuing to support Vention as they expand globally and scale their world-class team.”