A number of partners have been testing out an early version of the system, prior to the production model’s release. “It was just over a week that the first one came off the production line,” Brooks tells TechCrunch. DHL is the first large customer to be publicly announced, but while the global logistics firm no doubt has more than enough work to keep the robotics startup busy for the next decade, Brooks says that Robust is intentionally diversifying its client portfolio.
“We’re not going to just do business with DHL,” he explains. “Walmart had a whole bunch of robotics companies, and then they shut it down, and now those robotics companies are in trouble. We’ve made it clear to DHL that they only get a certain percentage of the robots we build, because we have to have a broader customer base.”