Teleo has announced it has raised US$16.2m in Series A extension funds in addition to its previously announced Series A funding. It will use the funds to scale customer deployments and continue its expansion in new industries that use heavy machinery.
Teleo will also use the funds to enhance its AI capabilities including advancing autonomous features, integrating large language models (LLMs) and collecting data to continue training AI models. Teleo’s first extension round totalled US$9.2m and was led by UP.Partners with participation from investors such as Trousdale Ventures and return investor F-Prime Capital, among others; the second extension, totaling US$7m, was also led by UP.Partners with participation from new investor Triatomic Capital, as well as returning investors F-Prime Capital and Trucks Venture Capital, among others. Since it was established in 2019, the company has raised US$29.8m.
“Our strong conviction in Teleo’s solution comes from the incredible impact their technology for remote and autonomous operations of heavy machinery is having for some of the largest operators in the world. In addition to significant productivity gains, Teleo creates a positive effect on the workforce, where skilled labor shortages are endemic to the industry,” said Adam Grosser, chairman and managing partner at UP.Partners.
Teleo announced last month that it has received new orders for 34 machines from nine new customers. The company secured customers in the pulp and paper, logging, port logistics, munition clearing, and agriculture industries. The company is also targeting expansion into other industries such as airports, waste and recycling, logistics, warehousing, and more.
Sanjay Aggarwal, venture partner, F-Prime Capital, said, “It’s rare to find a technology that delivers on the promise of being truly revolutionary for legacy industries and capable of solving a wide range of challenges, such as labor shortages. Teleo is capturing customers across an array of industries, and the company is positioned well to scale quickly.”
Teleo converts any make, model and vintage heavy equipment, such as bulldozers, wheel loaders and excavators, into autonomous and remote-operated robots. The combination of remote and autonomous operations, called Supervised Autonomy, enables one operator to supervise multiple machines working simultaneously. The operator sits at a central command center that can be stationed locally or miles away.
Vinay Shet, co-founder and CEO, Teleo, said, “There’s a wider, untapped range of industries where Teleo Supervised Autonomy can provide instant value. We will use these funds to further deploy and scale our technology so we can continue to address historic labor shortages and deliver a positive impact.”