Robotics consultants, together with Jacob Hennessey-Rubin, co-founder of NYR (proper), testifying in favor of Massachusetts’ invoice to ban weaponized robots. | Supply: New York Robotics
New York Robotics, a nonprofit devoted to advancing the robotics neighborhood within the New York Tri-State area, this week formally launched with greater than 160 robotics startups in its ecosystem. Almost 100 of those are in New York Metropolis alone, it mentioned.
New York Robotics (NYR) mentioned it hopes to determine town as a world contender in robotics alongside hubs reminiscent of Boston, Silicon Valley, Pittsburgh, Munich, Zurich, Singapore, and Odense, Denmark. It started as a Meetup group in 2021 and has been making ready for this launch for 2 years, Jacob Hennessey-Rubin, the co-founder and govt director of NYR, advised The Robotic Report. Since 2024, NYR has organized greater than 20 occasions.
When Hennessey-Rubin moved to New York in 2018 and labored at a robotics startup, he realized that there have been many different startups within the metropolis, together with an funding ecosystem, service suppliers, and a thriving educational neighborhood. What it lacked was a useful resource to drag these particular person items collectively, Hennessey-Rubin mentioned.
“We’ve executed quite a lot of work in serving to to develop these connections, but in addition to foster the pure work that’s taking place inside New York [state] and New York Metropolis specifically,” he mentioned. “We form of dropped the pebble in New York Metropolis, however we’re actually rising out throughout the ecosystem of the entire state.”
What makes New York a superb house for robotics startups?
A earlier New York Robotics meetup. | Supply: New York Robotics
There are many explanation why New York Metropolis would make a super house for a robotics startup, Hennessey-Rubin mentioned. “There may be such a various panorama right here, from folks, the buildings, the true property, the atmosphere, the constructed atmosphere, and it’s an thrilling alternative to create,” he mentioned. “I feel an amazing instance could be the FDNY robotics staff headquartered on Roosevelt Island. It’s a firefighting staff that makes use of each land, sea, and air robotic programs.”
NYR is pulling from town’s lengthy historical past of innovation, Hennessey-Rubin added. “Tesla, Edison, Bell, all these innovators labored on this area,” he mentioned. “Lengthy Island was a cradle of aviation, and there’s all of the stuff taking place in semiconductors in Upstate New York and in Western New York. The historical past that’s right here is basically thrilling, and folks typically neglect about that.”
As well as, greater than 20 universities inside 100 miles of Manhattan have robotics or engineering-focused packages, he mentioned. New York is centrally situated between the robotics clusters in Boston and Pittsburgh, plus Washington, D.C., the place the Nationwide Robotics Caucus has restarted.
“We have now a very good spot the place we change into a central node in tethering collectively all of those elements of the ecosystem to essentially develop the robotics trade at giant,” mentioned Hennessey-Rubin. “In order a lot as we concentrate on the 160-plus firms that we’ve within the Tri-State space, our actual focus is on supporting them from an financial and workforce growth perspective, in addition to connecting the dots throughout the nation and across the globe.”
How is NYR organized?
One factor Hennessey-Rubin realized early in his journey to determine New York Robotics is that there are numerous various kinds of robotic clusters with totally different buildings. MassRobotics, the Pittsburgh Robotics Community, Silicon Valley Robotics, and different regional organizations every present totally different sources for his or her communities.
NYR has targeted on a public-private mannequin, he mentioned. Final summer season, its staff and an intern from Columbia College checked out greater than 100 robotic help organizations (RSOs) around the globe.
“We cataloged all these people from incubators, accelerators, and enterprise studios that have been particular to robotics or had some form of robotics focus,” Hennessey-Rubin recalled. “We narrowed that right down to a choose group and began to interview to raised perceive their enterprise fashions, what they have been doing proper and improper, in addition to a few of the enterprise issues round how many individuals they have been graduating, what sort of capital they raised, and what number of IPOs that they had.”
“From that, we took an understanding that, with a view to actually propel the trade and ourselves ahead, we would have liked to first go into that personal funding mannequin. That permits us to broaden the scope of what we’re doing,” he mentioned. “Nothing towards the public-funded fashions, however they typically pigeonhole you into a particular KPI [key performance indicator] or a process that must be executed. To get ourselves off the bottom, we targeted on personal hyperlinks.”
NYR has 10 founding companions, in addition to annual and strategic companions. They embody J.P. Morgan, AlleyCorp, Informa Markets, Interwoven Ventures, Customary Bots, Monozukuri Ventures, Cybernetix Ventures, and Newlab, amongst others.
What are the important thing sectors for robotics in NYC?
New York-based startup Monumental Labs makes use of robots for stone carving. Human craftspeople end the sculptural work. | Supply: Monumental Labs
The number of companies in New York Metropolis gives robotics startups many sources for figuring out markets and creating merchandise, mentioned Hennessey-Rubin.
“An attention-grabbing factor about New York is that it offers that chance to develop [robots] right here, manufacture it right here, and check it right here,” he mentioned. “New York turns into a form of Petri dish of all of the alternatives for all of the issues that occur within the robotics ecosystem.”
Whereas NYR isn’t limiting itself to any particular industries, it does have a number of strategic focuses. Hennessey-Rubin mentioned medical fields, together with lab automation, prescription drugs, hospital logistics, and biotech area, is one space of curiosity.
Building is one other focus, in addition to manufacturing, warehousing, provide chain, and logistics. New York additionally affords distinctive alternatives for retail, meals, and hospitality robots, mentioned Hennessey-Rubin.
“One I’m most excited for is robotics in artwork and theater,” he added. “It comes by my background in design and manufacturing. We’ve seen robots each on stage and behind the digicam.”
New York Robotics launches the NYR Index
Together with its launch, NYR launched a non-public beta model of the NYR Index, a proprietary ecosystem intelligence device to provide companions unique entry to information, insights, and mapping throughout startups, traders, labs, and enterprise contributors.
“It’s all about relationships. Constructing this index was meant to get quite a lot of the data in our heads into a spot the place folks might entry it,” Hennessey-Rubin mentioned. “Our service suppliers and ecosystem companions are actually excited about offering their providers for these startups on this actually superb, rising trade. So it’s making a system that permits for that neighborhood to come back collectively and study one another in a web-based digital platform.”
NYR additionally plans to launch a Discord channel within the coming weeks as a digital place for founders to attach along with in-person occasions. The group additionally expects to proceed rising the roles part of its web site.
“That Profession Heart is basically going to assist form of carry that traction,” Hennessey-Rubin mentioned. “In January, our e-newsletter had over 50 jobs in it from the Tri-State space [New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut]. It’s very thrilling to see that form of progress taking place when folks have a look at New York and don’t typically take into consideration robotics taking place right here.”
What comes subsequent for NYR?
New York Robotics taking part in a panel at New York Tech Week. | Supply: New York Robotics
One among New York Robotics’ greatest priorities shifting ahead is to be an energetic a part of the robotics neighborhood throughout the nation. It plans to ship representatives at upcoming commerce reveals and trade occasions. NYR might finally set up a bodily location to help startups, however it’s presently extra targeted on occasions, mentioned Hennessey-Rubin.
“There may be undoubtedly curiosity in establishing that area, principally to offer these sources. On the similar time, our focus is on supporting the ecosystem broadly, and never essentially simply being a landlord or caring for a bit of actual property,” he famous. “There are additionally loads of different companions that we will work with, reminiscent of Newlab.”
“As a nonprofit, we’re at all times wanting on the fundraising facet to develop the staff and to have the ability to help the ecosystem we’re creating,” Hennessey-Rubin continued. “It’s actually about spreading the attention and determining methods to raised quantify and qualify the impression.”
Is NYR planning to work with native, state, and federal governments?
“We’ll be having these conversations with our lawmakers in order that they’re conscious that what we’re doing is basically necessary,” Hennessey-Rubin replied. “Nationally and globally, it’s secure to say that the embodied AI portion has been unnoticed of the coverage dialog, nevertheless it’s additionally a reasonably new course of. So you recognize, we need to ensure that we permit ourselves to place that flag within the floor.”
