FCF Fox Corporate Finance GmbH is pleased to publish the “Robotics Venture Capital Report – 2023”.
The report is part of the “FCF DeepTech Series”, which is a quarterly series of reports tracking European venture capital funding trends within four main DeepTech verticals.
Key findings are:
- The Robotics Venture Capital sector faces significant downwards trend: after a peak in 2021 with €1.9bn in funding volume across 384 transactions, funding activity has continuously declined, resulting in only €1.0bn of capital raised within 170 deals in 2023 (Q3 YTD). This indicates that the VC winter has now arrived in the Robotics sector as well.
- Funding volumes are strongly driven by mega deals: since 2021, yearly total funding volumes were mainly driven by mega deals (>€100m):
- 2021 with CMR Surgical (€497m, €239m), Agile Robots (€184m, €107m), Skyports (€116m) and eCential Robotics (€100m) – 52% of total volume
- 2022 with Exotec (€295m) and Scandit (€132m) – 23%
- 2023 with Distalmotion (€142m) and CMR Surgical (€142m) – 28%
- 70% of robotic IPOs were in Scandinavia by Scandinavian companies: Despite a low number of VC deals in the Scandinavian countries, the majority of IPOs – 7 out of 11 in total since 2018 – were placed there on the NASDAQ OMX or the Oslo Stock Exchange. However, these IPOs are small IPOs with volumes in the low double-digit and even single-digit million range. The only exception was the mega-IPO of AutoStore Holdings in 2021 with a volume of €1.9bn. This suggests that the public capital market is a viable option for fundraising start-ups in the Nordics.
- Robust M&A exit environment for robotic start-ups: After a slow year 2021 with only 2 M&A exits a record year 2022 with 11 M&A transactions followed. The year 2023 also shows a robust M&A environment with 6 deals YTD. It can be assumed that the currently difficult financing environment influences that development.
To access the full report, please click here.
By Florian Theyermann and Daniel Klier.