Rise of the machines: Achieving massive scale with frontline robotics
Ripple Hosts
Arjun Jairaj
noa
Marc Bouchet
TDK Ventures
TL;DR
Drones, quadrupeds, and humanoids are crossing the “zero to one” phase of robotic deployments in the built world. Let’s explore what is needed for large-scale automation of frontline work in the next 10 years.
Topic overview
Why is the topic relevant?
Frontline robotics are transforming the built world by automating high-risk, labor-intensive tasks across the asset lifecycle in sectors like real estate, energy and infrastructure. From construction to operations, they enhance efficiency, safety, and scalability—driving down costs and unlocking new investment opportunities. Early stage building operations robotics funding surged 9x in 2024 and we’re beginning to see positive economics for the sector. Commercial-grade legged autonomy and manipulation continues to unlock additional high ROI use cases for robotics across the built environment. How do we go from the current state of play to wider scale adoption of robotics in these sometimes challenging and unstructured environments?
What’s up for discussion?
Why is now the time for robotics adoption? What’s changed?
What learnings can we extract from the beginnings of scaled robot deployments in heavy industry and infrastructure?
How are startups demonstrating ROI to drive expansion within early customer profiles?
What is the potential for investors in this space? Is it another hype cycle?
Are humanoids the right fit for frontline work?
Do we believe that robotics startups in frontline industries can build data moats?
Where is there the most urgency for automation in the built environment?
Dream outcome
A conversation where we’re challenged by participants on whether this will be a transformative trend or a hype that will fail to see long term adoption - we'd like to engage with disagreement from the software eating the world crowd.
Who should attend?
Robotics founders, specialist investors, generalist investors, tech enthusiasts, futurists and sci-fi fans.