Sewts, founded in 2019 by former mechanical engineering students Alexander Bley, Tim Doerks, and Till Rickert, is working on technologies for the automated processing of deformable materials, such as textiles or foils. Due to their complex material properties, these materials have so far been excluded from advances in automation technology. The Munich-based robotics startup has developed control and image processing software that enables robots to predict the behavior of shape-stable materials during gripping in real time based on intelligent algorithms and respond precisely to them.
At the end of 2022, Sewts successfully celebrated its launch of its series-ready product Velum – a robot unit designed for large-scale industrial laundries. Market entryVelum feeds crumpled towels and other terry cloth products to the folding machines, thus contributing to the automation of a largely manual task. Up to 700 textiles can be processed per hour at a human-like speed.
Parallel to the market launch of Velum, the Munich-based company is already developing additional automation solutions for the textile industry. With support from the Otto Group, the Munich-based startup created a prototype for automated returns processing in e-commerce last year.
Labor shortage is a central issue in textile companies
After a pre-seed round in 2019 and a Seed round 2021 The Munich-based company has now secured further financing. Existing investor Bayern Kapital is participating in the €7 million Series A round. Monika Steger, Managing Director of Bavaria Capital, says:
"With Velum, Sewts has brought an innovative product solution to market maturity and is already planning further promising automation solutions for the textile industry. This will bring the production and recycling of textiles closer to the consumer market. Sewts is thus making an important contribution to overcoming the labor shortage in textile factories and to achieving global climate goals."
Driving international growth ambitions
Sewts Co-Founder and Co-CEO Alexander Bley added:
"We are very pleased to announce the completion of our Series A financing round and thank all investors for their trust. With this fresh capital, we will advance our international growth ambitions. This includes the introduction of additional Velum systems in international industrial laundries and, as a next step, the improvement of our prototype for the automated processing of returns in e-commerce."
