Theker recently raised $85M to build an industrial robot that doesn’t focus on anything

Humanoids aren’t ready to replace factory workers, but the industry can’t wait. Faced with labor shortages, manufacturers have shown increasing interest in startups that promise rapid automation without traditional trading.

That’s the bet behind Theker, an AI robotics startup that aims to surpass robots trained for a single task. “If you always have to put the same cookie in the same box, that works well, but most processes are not like that,” co-founder Carla Gómez Cano told TechCrunch.

Theker is designed for that harsh reality. Unlike humanoid robots designed around a fixed form — think Boston Dynamics — Theker’s machines are designed to be repositionable. Their hands, arms, and overall form can be changed or resized depending on the job, whether that’s sorting packages, packing clothes, or holding bottles and cans in a store.

That Inditex, Zara’s parent company, signed on as an early backer is a sign of where Theker’s ambitions begin, not where they end. The company’s broader goal is to move beyond retail into heavy industrial settings such as manufacturing, where the complexity and scale of manual tasks are even greater.

This generalist ambition has helped solidify Theker’s status as one of Europe’s hottest startups to watch – and raise capital accordingly. The Barcelona-based startup recently raised $85 million in what it calls “Europe’s largest robotics Series A.” (We haven’t found a big one in our records either.)

Less than a year after the record seed round, this series A was led by the American company VCV and supported by a mix of traditional and strategic investors, including Samsung and Aglaé Ventures, an investment vehicle tied to the chairman of LVMH Bernard Arnault.

Gómez Cano said that Samsung is not yet a client but both are in advanced discussions. Theker would welcome having a Korean company as a customer, supplier, and investor at the same time – a trifecta that would give the startup both revenue and reliability in high-volume production.

He also noted that he and co-founder Jiaqiang Ye Zhu “didn’t build Theker to run pilots,” so the team is skipping innovation departments entirely and going straight to transportation or operations, where deals are real and timelines are short.

To show that the company can really deliver that, Theker has a showroom in the center of Barcelona, ​​​​​​and plans to open more as it expands throughout Europe, the US and Asia. It will also increase its numbers across tech, shipping, and sales.

“We have already received 15,000 job applications and we have to sort through them like crazy,” said Gómez Cano. He estimated that the group could grow from many people to 120 by the end of the year, then he restrained himself: “I said that, but I also said that we will raise 30 or 40 million dollars!”

The fact that Theker was able to double its goal also strengthens the startup’s confidence in keeping its HQ in Barcelona, ​​a growing area of ​​robotics, and the European ecosystem at large. “It’s never been a hindrance to our acceleration, so we’re making the most of it,” Gómez Cano said.