The robotics industry in Southeast Asia is experiencing notable growth, with projections indicating an increase from US$1.2 billion in 2025 to US$1.75 billion by 2030, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.92 per cent. This expansion is driven by advancements in sectors such as automotive, electronics, and logistics, alongside supportive government policies and a focus on Industry 4.0 initiatives.
Singapore leads the region in robotics adoption, particularly in manufacturing and service industries, due to its robust research and development infrastructure and favourable investment climate. The city-state’s emphasis on automation has attracted significant investments, further solidifying its position as a regional hub for robotics innovation.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the deployment of robots across various applications, including healthcare, logistics, and public safety, highlighting the technology’s role in enhancing efficiency and reducing human contact. This period saw robots undertaking tasks such as medical supply delivery, disinfection, and monitoring public spaces.
Despite the positive trajectory, challenges persist, including high initial costs, the need for skilled labour, and cybersecurity concerns. Addressing these issues is crucial for sustaining growth and ensuring the successful integration of robotics across industries.
Also Read: The transformative potential of humanoid robots: A VC perspective
Overall, Southeast Asia’s robotics industry is poised for continued expansion, supported by technological advancements, government initiatives, and increasing recognition of automation’s benefits in enhancing productivity and operational efficiency.
We have compiled Southeast Asia’s 20 prominent robotic startups below:
MEGAROBO
A provider of robotic solutions for industrial laboratory automation. It leverages robotics and AI technologies to enhace productivity and productivity in various life sciences applications, including drug discovery and clinical diagnostics. It provides solutions for throughput drug screening, automated cell line development, and synthetic biology.
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2016
Total investments raised: US$427 million
Investors: Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Pavilion Capital Partners, Starr Group, Redview Capital, Taihecap Capital, GGV Capital, Asia Investment Capital, Harvest Capital, Sinovation Ventures, Joy Capital, Chuangxin Innovation Works, Matrix Partners China, Future Capital, WuXi AppTec, Liandong U Valley, Bosch, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, Inno Angel Fund, PowerCloud Venture Capital, and Zhulu Capital.
Fourier Intelligence
The company provides rehabilitation robotics development and redefining services.
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2015
Total investments raised: US$83 million
Investors: Prosperity7 Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund, Vision Plus Capital, Qianhai Ark Asset Management, Shenzhen Guozhong Venture Capital Management, Volcanics Venture, IDG Capital, and Prosperico Venture.
Rotimatic
Rotimatic develops a fully automatic flatbread-making robot. The robot comes with built-in artificial intelligence and IoT capabilities with a 32-bit microprocessor that harmoniously orchestrates 10 motors and 15 sensors. Users load the machine with the required ingredients and select the number of bread they wish to make, for it to prepare up to 20 loaves of bread in one go. It claims that the robot mirrors human judgment to adjust the proportion of flour and water in real time.
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2008
Total investments raised: U$48.5 million
Investors: Credence Partners, EDBI, Openspace Ventures, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, SPRING Singapore, NUS Enterprise, Enterprise Singapore, ABCOM Investments, and Rikvin Ventures.
Biobot Surgical
It develops surgical automation devices. The products include a robotic transperineal biopsy device (rTPB), developed through a collaborative partnership that enables surgeons to extract prostate biopsy tissues through two small needle puncture incisions on the perineal skin.
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2010
Total investments raised: US$17.9 million
Investors: ZIG Ventures.
LionsBot
LionsBot develops cleaning robots for commercial applications. It offers vacuuming and scrubbing. Its characteristics include the ability to convey its emotions through its eyes and voice. Some of the other features include obstacle avoidance, auto-docking capabilities, AI-enabled batteries, and multiple cleaning modes. It comes with soft bumpers, an emergency stop button, and clear lights and sounds to avoid collisions with people.
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2018
Total investments raised: US$17 million
Investors: TransLink Capital, Supersteam, and Kyra Ventures.
Eureka Robotics
Eureka provides robotic arms and control software for multi-utility. It develops software and systems to automate jobs requiring both high accuracy and agility in a variety of sectors, including optics, electronics, telecom, electronics, automotive, and more. It offers application-providing features such as coating lenses, cleaning and inspecting lenses, shaft assembling, connector insertions, and more.
Also Read: Navigating challenges and opportunities in the Malaysian robotics industry
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2018
Total investments raised: US$14,750,000.
Investors: B Capital, Airbus Ventures, Maruka Machinery, G. K. Goh Holdings, UTEC, ATEQ, and Touchstone.
EndoMaster
EndoMaster is involved in developing a robotic-assisted surgical system for endoscopic surgeries (minimally invasive surgery). The company claims that the system will enable surgeons to perform incision-less surgery. EndoMaster has tested its prototypes in first-in-man trials and showed positive results. The system can be used for the removal of gastrointestinal tumors endoscopically.
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2011
Total investments raised: US$14.6 million
Investors: Chuang Capital, HOYA, NTUitive, Nanyang Technological University, and SysteMED.
SESTO Robotics
SESTO develops AGVs for warehouses. Its features include payload transfer in warehouses and factories, onboard LIDARs for localization, navigation, and obstacle detection, job tasking and routing, as well as multi-purpose adaptability. It also provides disinfection robots for the healthcare sector. It caters to manufacturing, commercial, warehousing, and healthcare facilities.
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2017
Total investments raised: US$10 million
Investors: Trive Capital, WTI, Singtel Innov8, Heliconia Capital Management, SEEDS Capital, TRIVE, Temasek, and Great Noble International.
NDR Medical Technology
It provides an AI-enabled robotic-based device for image-guided procedures. The company offers Automated Needle Targeting (ANT) system that facilitates accurate and precise needle punctures in the minimally invasive image-guided procedures for lung, liver, kidney, spine, etc.
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2014
Total investments raised: US$5.8 million
Investors: K-Startup Grand Challenge, SGInnovate, NTUitive, MedTech Innovator, and JLABS.
Botsync
Botsync provides robotic solutions for material movement in the logistics industry. Products include material mover and ground mobile robot platform. The material mover features include lift racks or pallets through the lifter module to move it across the facility, it has a lock and pulls option to drag the item from one point to another with automatic lock & unlock, it can move based on size using a free and open module and it also comes with custom-designed rack based on the type & size of the material.
Also Read: Botsync closes US$5.2M Series A financing to further develop autonomous mobile robots
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2017
Total investments raised: US$5.2 million
Institutional investors: Capital 2B, Betatron Venture Group, IvyCap Ventures, AppWorks,
Iterative, ZB Capital, Ascend Angels, Wong Fong, Seeds Capital, AngelHub, Artesian, Venture Catalysts, Locus Ventures, Brinc, Nanyang Technological University, RISE,
Kharis Capital, SAP.iO, CoE-IoT, K3 Ventures, WFVEN, Ntuitive, Ecolabs, CapFort Ventures, and SEEDS Capital.
Augmentus
Augmentus is an online platform offering no-code robot programming. It provides a no-code computer vision and robot motion planning, enabling the programming of industrial robots. The platform is hardware-independent and provides end-to-end integration.
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2019
Total investments raised: US$5 million
Investors: Sierra Ventures, Cocoon Capital, StartupX, and GROW.
DF Automation and Robotics
It manufactures and maintains automatic guided vehicles. The AGVs can be magnetic strip guided or programmed to follow a particular path. Apart from the AGVs, they also develop and market universal robots and autonomous mobile robots.
Headquarters: Malaysia.
Established in: 2012
Total investments raised: US$3.7 million
Investors: Vynn Capital, MTDC, Leave a Nest Capital, pitchIN, Cradle, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.
Crown Digital
Crown Digital manufactures automatic coffee-making robots. Its system takes customer orders using an app and provides real-time notification when the coffee is ready.
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2015
Total investments raised: US$3.7 million
Investors: Momentum, ParticleX, Leave a Nest, Glocal Link, East Japan Railway Company,
Heliconia Capital Management, SEABD, and Momentum Ventures.
Quantum Intelligence
Quantum Intelligence is a manufacturer of inspection robots. It specialises in automation applications in mining, smelting, and other scenarios and has developed special operation robots.
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2016
Total investments raised: US$2.1 million
Investor: Tianying Capital
BeeX
It develops unmanned underwater vehicles and surface vessels. Its features include hover, robotic, and autonomous marine capabilities for underwater inspections. The company integrates with a software platform so that owners and service providers can collaborate on inspections.
Also Read: BeeX scores US$2M to accelerate autonomous inspection of offshore wind farms
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2018
Total investments raised: US$2 million
Investors: SEEDS Capital, Earth Venture Capital, ShipsFocus, Nus Technology Holdings,
Infinita, ema.gov.sg, Cap Vista, Quest Ventures, IMC Ventures, National University of Singapore, PIER71, and Origgin.
Movel AI
It develops a computer vision system for robots. The company intends to employ camera-based computer vision instead of Lidar. It is working on software that will be able to make sense of the image and identify objects and pathways from it. It caters to the construction, healthcare, and commercial industries.
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2016
Total investments raised: US$1.51 million
Investors: 500 Global, Avi-Tech Electronics, Seeds Capital, SGInnovate, Entrepreneur First, SparkLabs Global Ventures, PT Prasetia Dwidharma, Antares Capital, Founders Capital, 500 Durians, and August One.
CtrlWorks
CtrlWorks has developed and deployed a cloud-based navigation infrastructure and add-on kit that helps reduce robot size and weight. The company’s flagship product, Axon, is an autonomous guidance system that can be integrated into existing platforms via its CloudNav system.
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2011
Total investments raised: US$1.4 million
Investors: Wavemaker Partners, National Research Foundation, Qualcomm, Techstars, NTUitive, and Blue InCube.
AITREAT
AITREAT designs and manufactures assistive robots for doctors and surgeons to aid them during clinical processes. The flagship product is a robotic arm called TCM2R which is a messaging robot. The robot can be pre-programmed with the reference points on the patient’s body and pressure to be maintained. The robot also monitors the patient’s stress and endurance levels to ensure a bearable and therapeutic experience.
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2015
Total investments raised: US$1 million
Investors: Brain Robotics Capital, NTUitive, Bowery Residents Committee, Tasly, Mega-Tech, AIRX, and Blue InCube.
JAZRO
It provides an online platform offering coding courses.
Headquarters: Malaysia
Established in: 2019
Total investments raised: US$280,000
Investor: Gobi Partners.
Maitian.ai
Maitian.ai provides smart vending machines for fully autonomous retail stores. It offers an AI-based self-service smart cashier solution that helps retail owners convert their stores into self-functioning, unmanned retail stores. Its computer vision-enabled technology solution has features like automated payments, marketing tools, shopping path analysis, customer purchasing behaviour analysis, and others.
Headquarters: Singapore
Established in: 2018
Total investments raised: US$125,000
Investors: Y Combinator and TRIVE.
—
Image Credit: Pexels.
The post 🤖Rise of the machines: 20 robotics startups shaping Southeast Asia’s future appeared first on e27.