Though GreyOrange’s approach to R&D is melding inputs of its teams across all units, it prefers operations managed locally. “Our products are driven through a global R&D team. But we wanted our operations to be local,” explains Kohli. Last year, the company appointed Chris Barber as regional CEO, North America. Barber was previously vice president of southern operations at Honeywell Intelligrated. “We operate in a regional profit and loss (P&L) model. Hiring a regional CEO for the North American market was critical,” says Kohli. This August, GreyOrange reiterated its global scaling plans by hiring Jeff Cashman as global COO and senior vice president. Cashman, who was CEO of e-commerce service provider Ally Commerce, packs 30 years of experience in supply chain technology and has had stints with Accenture’s supply chain strategy practice. He will be responsible for shaping strategies for widening customer base, market penetration, revenue growth, marketing, solution delivery, and customer success.

Folks who know their startup history would know big ideas that took off in India trace their origins to the West. For instance, Flipkart (Amazon), or Ola (Uber). Raju Reddy, a U.S.-based angel investor, says the story is a bit different with GreyOrange. “It is rare for an Indian-origin hardware startup to build high-tech products which require not just software expertise but hardware, electrical and mechanical engineering for a global market. This business is not imitating some Western idea. It shows significant competence,” says Raju Reddy. He was among those who invested $500,000 in GreyOrange’s first round of funding in December 2012, a year after it launched in 2011. Blume Ventures and BITS Spark (an angel network of BITS, Pilani alumni) were the other investors.

Raju Reddy, who sits on the board at GreyOrange, can vouch for the duo’s competence. He has known them since their college days. Both were part of Team AcYut at the Centre for Robotics & Intelligent Systems at BITS Pilani. The team builds humanoid robots which are showcased in prestigious platforms such as RoboGames, the largest robot competition in the U.S. and a mecca for robotics geeks. Kohli was part of Team AcYut in 2007 when it built the first series of humanoid robots in India. At the RoboGames that year, the team finished sixth. In 2008, the team progressed to the third spot and the next year, when Gupta was a team member, struck gold. That same year the duo began interning at surveying and mapping firm C&C Technologies in Louisiana. In their spare time, Kohli and Gupta worked on a haunted ride spread over 400 sq. ft. in CEO Thomas Chance’s house for Halloween. The project took six months.

In the following years, Kohli and Gupta became known figures in robotics and began getting invitations to teach and share ideas at workshops. In February 2011, they started GreyOrange as a robotics-education company with `5 lakh from savings from their internship days in the U.S. By the end of that year, they shifted tack. “We decided that we will bank on our product expertise and build a business model on that knowledge,” says Kohli. The duo began by making products for other companies. Then they felt they needed to narrow down on an industry for which they would design solutions. This was the time when e-commerce was gathering pace in India. Kohli and Gupta observed that online marketplaces, flush with funds, needed robots and automated systems to ensure timely customer fulfilment. Karthik Reddy of Blume Ventures says more than anything else, it is Kohli and Gupta’s vision of using this opportunity that has kept the VC firm invested in GreyOrange. “There was an incredible sense of passion in both founders to build an IPO-able company from India, applying their knowledge of robotics to complex problems of warehouses and the logistics supply chain,” says Karthik Reddy. “Their dream is not simply some valuation and a fundraise; they want a company that lasts longer than any fund life. That kind of clarity is why we have backed them through every round to date.”

The company’s flagship product, the Butler, a box-shaped robot, owes its design to the learnings its creators obtained by observing the drill in warehouses. It can move shelf units stacked with items weighing up to 500 kg to a human assistant, who then picks up the products and scans their barcodes. The robot then moves the selected items to the shipping bay where they are sealed for delivery. A stronger variant of the Butler launched last year is used in manufacturing facilities and large retail warehouses. It can ferry loads up to 1,600 kg. The AI-backed robot is equipped to make decisions by accessing data using machine learning applications and adapt to scenarios such as seasonal peaks or a surge in demand. The Butler’s services are used by U.S.-based XPO Logistics (ranked 180 on the Fortune 500 list), a $17-billion transportation and logistics service provider; Japan-based furniture retailer Nitori; and fishing tackle maker Daiwa.

Besides robotic products such as the Butler, automated picking system PickPal and the Sorter, a conveyor belt-based system that segregates packages according to zip codes, weight, and volume, GreyOrange also has a software platform, GreyMatter. It integrates multiple automation systems backed by AI and machine learning to perform large and complex operations in real-time for industries such as retail, manufacturing, and e-commerce. “In the last two-three years, we have been focussing heavily on building capabilities within the warehouse to build key technology platforms that would enable multiple products,” says Gupta.

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