Teleo, a California-based startup that retrofits heavy equipment into semi-autonomous robots, has raised $12m (£9,5m) in Series A funding led by UP.Partners.
F-Prime Capital and K9 Ventures also joined the round, as did Trucks Venture Capital and several angel investors.
The fresh funding will enable Teleo to scale the deployment of their product and further invest in R&D.
Vinay Shet, co-founder and CEO of Teleo, said: “With this Series A funding, we plan to double down on hardening and deploying technology that lets our customers operate their existing fleets of heavy equipment semi-autonomously.”
Teleo lets construction and mining contractors run their heavy equipment without an operator in the cabin.
Instead, with the Teleo’s supervised autonomy technology, the operator can control multiple pieces of equipment while sitting at a remote control station, significantly enhancing safety and productivity, the startup says.
Adam Grosser, chairman and managing partner of UP.Partners, commented: “Teleo was founded by two exceptional individuals, with extensive backgrounds in deep technology and autonomy.
“We believe their approach to bringing human supervised autonomy to the heavy equipment market is incredibly insightful and important.
“Teleo’s technology positively impacts the ROI of operation, while both upskilling the operator community, and increasing safety levels.”
Along with the Series A funding, Teleo is officially partnering with RDO Equipment Co., a construction equipment and technology supplier and one of John Deere’s largest dealerships.
Image: Teleo’s technology allows heavy equipment to be operated remotely (credit: Teleo).
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