Last week, Shopify announced the intent to acquire 6 River Systems, a Boston-based automation firm that provides solutions for e-commerce fulfillment. While the $450M deal is not yet done, this will be the first major acquisition that has happened in this space since Amazon purchased Kiva Systems in 2012. In the broader collaborative robotics industry, two of the three major…

6 River Systems, a Waltham, Mass.-based warehouse automation startup best known for its Chuck autonomous mobile robot (AMR), was acquired by Shopify for $450 million. Shopify, the Canadian e-commerce giant, paid 60% in cash and 40% in shares for the deal, which is slated to close in Q4 2019. Shopify launched in June 2019 its…

6 River Systems, which makes the Chuck AMRs and Mobile Sort smart kiosks, and Soft Robotics, which makes compliant grippers and the SuperPick system, have integrated their offerings for mobile picking.

Growing demand for rapid e-commerce order fulfillment is a major driver for the development and adoption for mobile robots. However, the market and the technologies that serve it are changing rapidly. The Robot Report asked the following four experts in mobile robotics about their observations (their responses have been edited for length): Tom Galluzzo, founder…

6 River Systems (6RS), a Waltham, Mass.-based startup founded by former Kiva Systems executives, raised $25 million in Series B funding. The company will use the funding to continue developing its Chuck warehouse robot, support development of a decision-making engine for warehouses, and add 80-plus employees over the next 12 months. 6RS has raised a total…