Neura Robotics: Update after investment by Till Reuter

Just the morning after the announcement that ex-Kuka CEO joins the board of Neura Robotics, I (photo left) had the opportunity of an interview with David Reger (photo right), founder and CEO of Neura Robotics. The company had already been covered extensively here. Correctly pointing out that even more than the blog, I am managing a startup. This was with its product Opdra partner of Neura Robotics at the automatica. It was shown how a machine (here a food processor) can be operated by a robot without an interface by means of Opdra . This was achieved simply by having a camera read out the display of the food processor and thus the recipe using a simple camera. Opdra has this capability. David Reger and I are on a first-name basis, which is not unusual in the industry.

The interview was not proofread and was put online by me still at the fair after a single proofreading.

How satisfied are you with the fair?

Very satisfied. I think it has fulfilled the purpose. Everything still has to work, but it was very positive. The goal was to get different partners or to get them to sign. Things are looking very good there. The goal of my team just getting the push again and seeing what they worked for and getting the emotion of the visitors was achieved. That's why the developers were also taken along, that they get direct feedback from the response. By the way, you can recognize them at the booth by their T-shirts. Every evening there was a speech and you felt the feeling of happiness after being locked in and ambitious for 3 years. Everyone got their pat on the back.

Yesterday, with the announcement of the participation of Till Reuter is the same for the whole team, a pat on the back. It is a merit of everyone.

The announcement that Till Reuter, formerly CEO of Kuka, had been recruited for the board of Neura Robotics caused a stir yesterday. What tasks will he take on and how intensive will his activities be?

In every area where Neura is better, there is a real expert inside, so there was a time advantage here from the beginning. Now the time has come for the same for management. We want to globalize incl. China. He has a huge network. Till has extreme experience with growth and also with people who can help with growth. He knows some. Going public is another topic. We have ideas, but no experience. We have the vision, he has the experience. He is an investment banker. He has contacts here as well. He has the same vision as I do about robotics. He thought our vision was mega-genius and thinks it will be the next big thing. He didn't believe the videos at first, then he came to Metzingen. At that time, I didn't even know why he was coming over.

Till received many offers, similar to Kuka. But he wanted to do something new.

Keyword IPO

2024/25 would be a target. There are potential investors who want to go public given the growth curve. We could have closed the next round of financing already, but we wanted any investor to be able to evaluate us properly first on the basis of automatica - in comparison with other robotics companies. But this was also a requirement of the investors.

Towards August, the new round of investors is expected to be closed with European and American investors.

What will be the next steps, also in sales?

We have partners in the USA, Canada and Europe. We always supply through direct partners who don't have to supply the whole market across all industries. We think in channels. The goal is that partners can sell a product worldwide with their application. This is done with the support of Neura Robotics. We develop with partners. That is the main focus.

The Japanese colleagues sell on their market. It's always about artificial intelligence for automotive applications. We have the components that no one else offers. The whole thing will probably come to Germany. At the moment, German customers are still more reserved when it comes to AI. Japan is all about AI, otherwise we wouldn't need to deliver at all. They have good robot manufacturers. For the Japanese, we are only interesting because of artificial intelligence, otherwise they wouldn't need us at all.

The big Japanese companies don't buy directly, but always want someone in charge. That's where the partnership helps. The Japanese partner was in development every day for a month to vouch in Japan for the videos shown, whose content was not believed. They shot videos on which a Japanese person was always visible as a witness.

When Japanese are convinced, they do everything for the product and identify with the product when they have put in a lot of time.

Is there a timeline for household robotics?

This year, the focus is on further developing the prototypes from the hardware side. This year and next year, we are working with various partners in the kitchen area. It's about developing tools for the household so that robotics makes sense at all. During this time, we are mainly working on the platform so that it becomes easier. APIs have been developed for that. There are questions about how it deals with different people.

Pilot tests are to be carried out in the second half of 2023. Anyone can apply for a limited number of household robots and then they will be tested together. It should be possible to offer it as a product in 2024.

We are also talking to larger companies here that would like to launch such a product on the market. Therefore, it is still too early for concrete statements such as is there a B2B market or direct market? These are questions that still need to be answered. At the moment, also against the background of our own (smaller) size, it boils down to a B2B solution.

What would you like to reveal about the production?

MAIRA production, like that of MAV, takes place entirely in Germany; Lara in China. This also works well. Most of MAIRA's components come from Germany. Manufacturing in China would make little sense, also in view of the transport costs. MAIRA's capacity is 1,300 units/year in 1-shift operation. Scaling up is planned for next year.

Something personal: You have created a lot in 3 years. Was there still a private life or was sleep even completely dispensed with?

I gave up a lot of sleep. My daughter has spent a lot of time with robots. I have two daughters, an understanding wife, who have not seen me for 2 weeks. They visited us at the show yesterday and were impressed. Quality time has been fully utilized over the last three years.

Thank you for the conversation.

Are we networking? LinkedIn
-> To the Cobot group on LinkedIn (Link) .

In my own account/advertisement
The author of this blog is significantly involved in the AI/robotics project Opdra. He advises on almost all issues related to robotics incl funding/subsidies. More about him can be found here.