London robot manufacturer Inovo has secured £1.45m in new funding.
The investment will be used to grow sales internationally and brings the total raised to nearly £3m.
The follow-on investment comes from Foresight Group, an independent infrastructure and private equity investment manager, and Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE).
Inovo was founded in 2016 by Henry Wood and Jonathan Cheung, two former senior engineers at defence technology company Northrup Grumman.
The firm is developing a robot designed to operate within a human work environment, assisting people with repetitive tasks. The collaborative robot, or ‘cobot’ is built with a modular design which means it can reprogrammed for use in a variety of tasks.
On the investment, Andrew Bloxam, Senior Investment Manager at Foresight, said: “It has been a pleasure to see Inovo bring its product to market since our initial investment in late 2018. Now, with strong interest from customers and the need for automation solutions like cobots growing rapidly, we are delighted to invest again and support the company as it scales up.”
Henry Wood, Co-founder, Inovo Robotics: added “Having the support from the Foresight Williams Technology EIS Fund has allowed us to significantly accelerate the development of the business. Foresight has made an invaluable contribution to the company’s commercial strategy, helping to identify new opportunities and building a solid growth strategy.
“WAE has a vast range of relevant experience and hundreds of highly skilled experts who continue to assist us with highly specialist technical challenges that arise. Closing this second round of investment is testament to the strong relationship with FWT and a deep shared belief in the scale of the market opportunity.”