Barcelona's THEKER raised an $85 million Series A to build a reconfigurable industrial robot that handles mixed SKUs without reprogramming, the second generalist-robot bet venture capital has placed in a single week.
How it works: The robot swaps hands, arms, and form factor by task and adapts in real time to irregular shapes and variable packaging: package sorting, clothing packing, bottle handling.
The target is fixed automation, which works only when the work repeats. Putting "the same cookie in the same box" works perfectly, CEO Carla Gómez Cano told TechCrunch, "but most processes aren't like that."
The company's pitch: "We didn't build THEKER to run pilots. We built it to ship robots that work the day they arrive and continue improving every day after."
Who's backing it: CRV led in one of its first Spanish investments. Samsung made its first bet on a Spanish company; LVMH made its first investment in the Spanish startup ecosystem. Cathay and Henkel joined, alongside two operators who run real warehouses: Inditex and grocer Mercadona.
The pattern: Standard Bots closed $200 million two days earlier, also with Samsung money, also on the thesis that capital is rotating away from single-function fixed systems like Symbotic and Dematic toward robots that flex across tasks.
For operators still sitting out fixed automation, a robot that adapts to the work instead of forcing the work to fit the robot is the part worth watching.
