Amadeus Capital Partners leads SLAMcore’s $5m round

SLAMcore, a UK company developing spatial artificial intelligence algorithms for robots and drones, has raised $5m in funding led by Amadeus Capital Partners.

Existing shareholders Mirai Creation Fund and Toyota AI Ventures joined the round alongside newcomers MMC Ventures and Octopus Ventures.

“The robotics revolution may seem just around the corner but there is still a big gap between the videos we see on the internet and real-world robots,” said CEO Owen Nicholson.

“SLAMcore is helping robot and drone creators to bridge the gap between demos and commercially-viable systems.”

Robots and drones require spatial intelligence, including the ability to accurately calculate their position, understand unfamiliar surroundings, and navigate with consistent reliability.

The algorithms which achieve this spatial awareness are referred to as Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM).

SLAMcore offers spatial AI solutions designed to integrate into existing platforms.

“It is a really exciting time for robotics,” said SLAMcore co-founder Dr Stefan Leutenegger.

“We are seeing a convergence of geometric computer vision algorithms, availability of high-performance computational hardware, and Deep Learning. We are embracing this new world and will move quickly towards offering solutions for robots requiring an advanced level of understanding of their environment.”

Amelia Armour, principal at Amadeus Capital Partners, said: “BIS Research estimates the global SLAM technology market to be worth over $8 billion by 2027. This funding round will enable SLAMcore to take its spatial AI solution to that growing market and we expect demand for its affordable and flexible system to be high. Having backed SLAMcore at the start, we’re excited to be investing again at this critical stage for the company.”

“Our initial product will calculate an accurate and reliable position, without the need for GPS or any other external infrastructure, but that is just the start,” added Nicholson.

“With this funding, we will also develop detailed mapping solutions capable of creating geometrically-accurate reconstructions of a robot’s surroundings in real-time, and understanding the objects within, utilising the latest development in machine learning.”