Warehouse robotics software startup Destro AI Inc. has raised $8 million in new funding to bring its platform for coordinating mixed robot fleets to more enterprise warehouses, using the funds partly to hire more engineers and researchers.

Destro provides software that tells warehouse robots what to do, whichever company built them. “Everyone is building capable robots,” said founder and Chief Executive Manthan Pawar, who expects the next breakthrough to come from “the intelligence layer that enables any robot to work together.”

The coordination system is called MothershipOS. Sitting outside any one robot, the software assigns each task across a mixed fleet, down to when and where the work happens. Mobile manipulation is handled on the robots by a second system, VisionOS, built on artificial intelligence models that learned from human demonstrations how to perceive and grasp objects.

Customers can run machines from several vendors under one system and swap hardware as their operations change. With regulations and supply chains around robotics still shifting, Destro is betting that warehouse operators will want an automation strategy that does not hang on one manufacturer.

Yusen Logistics (Americas) Inc. is the one customer Destro names. The logistics company said in August that it was deploying the platform in its transload operations. The first pilot, at a Yusen facility in the Pacific Northwest, used three cart-moving robots built by Miva Robotics, TechCrunch reported. That site is moving to a full deployment of 26 robots, and a 17-robot pilot is starting at a Yusen facility in Southern California.

Rick Brunelle, Yusen’s director of automation, said the platform gives his teams “a new level of intelligence and control” across its transload workflows.

Destro is less than a year old and already booking revenue, and Pawar told TechCrunch the company is “on path to be cash flow positive at the end of this year.” The company also says it has won head-to-head evaluations against competitors valued at $1 billion or more.

The Brooklyn company’s founding team came from Hai Robotics Co. Ltd., Dexterity Inc. and Matic Robots Inc. Pawar holds a master’s degree in robotics from New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering.

The seed round was co-led by Base10 Partners Management and Bonfire Ventures Management, with CoFound Partners joining as a third backer.

Adeyemi Ajao, co-founder and managing partner at Base10, said Destro had two pilots running when the firm first met Pawar and was “live in production with some of the largest logistics operators in the country” a few months later.

“We’ve spent enough time around warehouses and logistics networks to know that operational complexity is where good ideas go to die,” said Jennifer Richard, a principal at Bonfire. “The gap between a successful demo and a successful deployment is enormous.”

Photo: Destro AI