Chrysalix partners with Dutch RoboValley on €100 million robotics fund

Vancouver-based Chrysalix Venture Capital has announced a €100 million fund aimed at driving the global robotics revolution, in partnership with RoboValley, a centre for robotics commercialization based at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
The RoboValley Fund is Chrysalix’s first robotics fund, and will concentrate on disbursing seed and Series A rounds of funding to early-stage companies developing component technology, intelligent software, and other breakthrough robotics technologies.
“Robotics is predicted to be the next big step in the digital revolution having an unprecedented impact on the way that we live, and provides an answer to some of the grand challenges of the 21st Century,” said RoboValley managing director Arie van den Ende. “Together with Chrysalix long-standing expertise in commercializing early stage industrial innovations, the RoboValley Fund will bring much needed capital and accelerated paths to market for our most promising next generation robotics technologies.”
RoboValley plays host to more than 170 robotics researchers from various fields, all collaborating with experts, entrepreneurs and both private and public sector decision-makers, creating a network at the University’s Delft Robotics Institute.
The Delft “robo-hub”, in the province of Zuid-Holland, currently has 21 start-ups working alongside established companies specialized in the field of robotics.
“Global technology in robotics is advancing very quickly yet today there is no international pure-play venture capital fund focused on robotics and so closely aligned with a robotics ecosystem. Many breakthrough technologies are stranded in universities and national labs with insufficient early-stage funding available to help them commercialize and scale,” said RoboValley Fund managing partner Mike Sherman. “RoboValley and Delft University of Technology have an outstanding reputation for being on the cutting edge of modern robotics research and development, with exclusive access to emerging technologies as well as leading professors and industry experts world-wide, and we are pleased to be partnered with them on this new fund.”
Founded in 2001, Chrysalix is one of the longest standing pure-play industrial innovation and alternative energy venture capital firms, providing early-stage financing and hands-on networking to companies that it invests in.