Intrinsic, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, says it has acquired Vicarious, a US-based trailblazing robotics company. Intrinsic is unlocking the creative and economic potential of industrial robotics for millions more businesses, entrepreneurs, and developers. The startup has now agreed to acquire Vicarious, noting, “We believe that combining our efforts will help us solve industry problems faster and accelerate our shared mission.”
Vicarious has been around for more than a decade, having raised a healthy $250 million from luminaries such as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Samsung. It touts itself as a “turnkey robotics solutions integrator that leverages artificial intelligence to automate operations that are too complicated and varied for conventional automation.” This comprises routine warehousing and logistics operations such as palletizing, picking, and packing.
Scott Phoenix, CEO of Vicarious, will join DeepMind as CCO, while a small group led by Vicarious CTO Dileep George, will join the DeepMind research team. According to Wendy Tan-White, the company’s CEO, mentioned in the announcement that Intrinsic has collaborated with teams in the past while it was under the parent company Alphabet. Together with Vicarious it will push the boundaries of intelligent robotics and Artificial Intelligence.
Intrinsic has remained largely silent since its inception, preferring to focus on developing technological pilots with real-world organisations. So far, the announcement hasn’t given us much more information about the deal, so that’s likely to stay true. The CEO, however noted that the company will “share more about this news in the coming months”.
