Kindred Closes $28 Million

Artificial intelligence startup Kindred secured $28 million in Series B financing led by Tencent Holdings, with participation from Eclipse Ventures, and First Round Capital.

Kindred brings together artificial general intelligence, machine learning, and remote human guidance to create intelligent robots that solve real-world problems alongside humans in environments like today’s supply chain. Its first product, Kindred Sort, is a robotic putwall solution that works with fulfillment center associates to assemble ecommerce orders from batch-picked items. Kindred Sort can pick up, bar-code scan, and sort nearly any item — 250 to 400 times an hour — for outbound fulfillment, inbound receiving, order kitting, and store replenishment.

The company intends to use the funds for continued research, development ,and deployment of its robots-as-a-service platform.