Renault Group and Wandercraft announced the closing of a minority investment by Renault Group in Wandercraft, with the aim of bringing new robotics technologies to automotive production.
Renault Group invested together with Wandercraft’s existing shareholders and new investors.
Building on its expertise in exoskeletons, Wandercraft has developed a platform for uses such as manufacturing.
Through a commercial partnership agreement, Renault Group and Wandercraft aim to ensure the development of Calvin, a family of next generation robots, firstly for industrial uses.
Calvin should allow Renault Group to relieve its workers from painful and non-ergonomics tasks, while reducing production time and thus gaining on productivity.
At a later stage, this partnership will also include the industrialisation of robots and exoskeletons by Renault Group with the intention to reduce costs through design-to-cost and scaling.
Thierry Charvet, chief industry and quality officer of Renault Group, said: “This partnership with Wandercraft is a forward-looking move.
“It will allow us to accelerate on automation and to develop robots for our specific auto industrial use, giving us the opportunity to concentrate our people on more value-adding tasks and alleviate operators from painful and non-ergonomics duties.
“It will drive productivity through the acceleration of production time and costs’ reduction.
“In the end, it makes a lot of sense to combine Wandercraft’s unique expertise and technology in exoskeletons and robots, with Renault Group’s strong industrial capacity and design-to-cost know-how to bring the production of robots at scale.”
Matthieu Masselin, CEO and co-founder of Wandercraft, added: “Renault Group’s investment marks a defining moment for Wandercraft.
“This partnership will boost our ability to build and scale high-impact, low-cost robotics that improve the everyday lives of real people – whether it’s helping individuals with disabilities walk or supporting industrial workers through automation – on the factory floor, in clinics and at home.
“We’re proud to combine our technology with Renault Group’s industrial excellence to deliver the next generation of mobile robotics.”
