Inventory-taking robots could soon become a common sight in supermarket stores across the country, if a company called Bossa Nova Robotics Inc. gets its way.

The company, whose robots are already being tested in number of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. locations across the country, today closed on a $17.5 million Series B funding round. That brings its total funding to $41.7 million, and the firm said it will use the new cash to accelerate its rollout of robots in stores across the U.S.

Founded way back in 2005, Bossa Nova over the last few years has focused on building robots for retail stores that leverage new technologies such as automation and analytics. The central task of its robots is to analyze the stock on stores’ shelves in order to help optimize inventories and ensure the availability of products.

Essentially, Bossa Nova’s robots are automating a task that could previously only be performed by humans. The advantages for retailers include more efficiency and greater employee productivity as they’re freed up to perform other tasks. Bossa Nova also claims retailers can realize significant cost savings with its robots as they often spot things that humans miss.

“Out-of-stock items are a big problem for retailers – if a customer can’t find an item, the sale is lost,” Martin Hitch, chief business officer of Bossa Nova, said in an interview. “However, even the most detail-oriented store employees can only scan shelves a couple times a week to track for things like out-of-stocks, misplaced items, or products with wrong or missing labels. A robot can scan the shelves and catch more anomalies more frequently.”

Store workers needn’t worry about losing their jobs just yet, however. Hitch said the company’s robots aren’t intended to replace human workers, but instead free them up for other tasks that machines cannot perform.

“What we’ve learned is the robots are very good at certain tasks and terrible at others, so there’s a collaboration that happens between the robots and humans,” he explained. “Overall, the addition of robots in a retail environment lets store associates be more efficient and effective.”

Bossa Nova’s robots were first deployed in retail stores in 2013, and the company recently landed a major client in Walmart, which is testing them in 50 of its stores nationwide.

Now, with more than $17 million in new funds, Bossa Nova said, it’s ready to expand its engineering and commercial teams with a view to scaling its robots and data services in more stores. The latest round was led by venture capital firm Paxion Capital Partners, with participation from Intel Capital, WRV Capital, Lucas Venture Group and Cota Capital.

“Bossa Nova is solving a hard inventory problem that costs retailers billions of dollars every year,” said Michael Marks, a general partner at Paxion who will join Bossa Nova’s board of directors. “The company has developed a unique set of algorithms and proprietary technologies that give them a strong lead in autonomous robotics and retail data analytics.”

Image: Bossa Nova Robotics