Masayoshi Seun
Alessandro Di Ciommo | NurPhoto | Getty Images
LONDON – Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank has acquired 40% of Norwegian warehouse automation firm AutoStore for $ 2.8 billion.
The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Monday and later confirmed by AutoStore in an update on its website.
The value of AutoStore, which was listed in 1996, is $ 7.7 billion.
SoftBank, which has made a number of investments in e-commerce and robotics over the past few years, is buying the stake from US private equity group Thomas H Lee Partners and Swedish venture capital firm EQT.
“We consider AutoStore a fundamental technology that enables fast and cost-effective logistics for businesses around the world,” said Masayoshi Son, CEO and founder of SoftBank, in a statement.
He added: “We look forward to working with AutoStore to aggressively expand across end markets and geographic areas.”
AutoStore was founded by Ingvar Hognaland and is headquartered in a town called Nedre Vats, named Nedre Vats. AutoStore has developed ‘cube storage automation’, which enables robots to maximize storage space in warehouses.
It says it has deployed 20,000 of its robots at 600 sites in 35 countries and that the technology enables customers to store the inventory four times in the same space, or all their existing inventory in 25% of the space. AutoStore customers include US electronics retailer Best Buy, Swedish telecom component Siemens and UK grocery chain Asda.
Karl Johan Lier, president and CEO of AutoStore, said in a statement that the support of SoftBank will help it grow in the Asia-Pacific region.
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SoftBank’s Son believes that machines will outsmart people in the next 30 years.
Through the SoftBank Vision Fund, the billionaire pumped large amounts of capital into companies such as Arm, Improbable and Brain Corp. as part of an effort to ensure that SoftBank has a financial stake in companies working on next-generation technologies.
SoftBank has also acquired shares in various logistics companies that could improve the supply chains for e-commerce giants such as Alibaba, in which SoftBank also has a stake.
SoftBank, for example, supported the American warehouse robot group Berkshire Gray in 2019. The logistics automation system provider announced in February that it would be announced in a deal through a merger with the blankcheck company Revolution Acceleration Acquisition Corp in an agreement that values the joint venture at $ 2.7 billion.
Nathan Benaich, a venture capitalist focusing on artificial intelligence, told CNBC that the pandemic was clearly a “blessing” for warehouse logistics and fulfillment businesses, as it is the “backbone of online commerce”.
“AutoStore, among peers like Berkshire Gray, Ocado Robotics and 6 River Systems, has been ‘overnight’ robotics success shops for almost 10-20 years,” he said. “They have quietly expanded their capabilities and warehouse footprint during that time and are now aggressively capturing today’s rising customer demand.”