06. May 2020

ARQIS has advised Agile Robots AG (“Agile Robots“), a highly innovative robotics company, on its Series A financing round. The eight-digit investment round was led by C-Ventures, a Hong Kong based venture capitalist for innovative companies founded by cultural entrepreneur Adrian Cheng and further included the existing financial investors such as GL Ventures (Hillhouse), Sequoia Capital China and Linear Venture Capital. ARQIS has been advising Agile Robots and its founders for the last two years and throughout the last four financing rounds. This included the establishment as a stock corporation as well as the set-up of subsidiaries for Agile Robots in Hongkong and Beijing.

Upon completion of the recent financing round, Dr. Zhaopeng Chen (Founder and CEO of Agile Robots), said: “We are very excited to be working with investors who think in a future-oriented manner, have a deep understanding of our business and support us in making robotics more accessible to the general public. We are also thankful that we were able to sign the round shortly before COVID-19 became a serious issue.”

Agile Robots is a hightech startup based in Gilching in the west of Munich. As a spin-off from the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at DLR’s Oberpfaffenhofen, it has been developing robots for a wide range of applications from industrial manufacturing and logistics to medical robotics since 2018. Agile Robots’ special expertise refers to innovative hardware components such as torque-controlled robot arms and a broad range of sensors which are incorporated in next generation lightweight robots. This unique hardware set is combined with the specially developed, intelligent image processing algorithms, which enable the robots to act safely and precisely even in an unknown environment and at the same time in direct cooperation with humans.

With the help of the fresh capital, Agile Robots intends to push ahead with the serial production of the self-developed robot arms, further development and refinement of the software and to invest in the steadily growing team of developers. The demand for innovative solutions in automation is enormous and likely to increase in the future, given the economic consequences of the current corona crisis. It is currently becoming apparent that companies that are equipped with automation solutions are less affected by the consequences of a shutdown.

ARQIS and Agile Robots work together on a continuous basis. ARQIS not only secured the fourth major financing round within 21 months with a nice eight-digit Euro amount, but also coordinates the worldwide legal, IP and patent strategy for Agile Robots and advised on the set-of of employee incentive programs for the Chinese and German employees as well as strategic partnership agreements with large corporates.

Advisors to Agile Robots
ARQIS Rechtsanwälte (Munich): Prof. Dr. Christoph von Einem (lead), Dr. Mauritz von Einem (Co-Lead), Dr. Christof Schneider (all Corporate M&A), Marcus Nothhelfer (IP/IT); Associates: Elisabeth Falterer, Louisa Buchsbaum (both Corporate M&A), Fabian Schmid (IP/IT)