Destro AI’s secret sauce is getting robots and humans on the same page

The best path to successfully deploying a robot is not building one at all, according to Destro, a startup that came out of stealth Tuesday with an $8 million seed round.

Most new robotics companies are focused on finding the right form factor or developing an AI model that can put metal hands to work. Destro has instead built an AI intelligence layer that lets robots work effectively in logistics settings, in part by also telling the human workers what to do.

“A lot of robotics companies started from robotics engineers [asking] ‘What cool things I can do?’” Destro founder Manthan Pawar, a veteran of the industry, told TechCrunch. “One of the biggest reasons we are winning against robotics companies is because we are not a robotics company.”

Pawar, who earned a master’s degree in robotics at NYU Tandon and has spent roughly eight years in the U.S. supply chain and robotics industry, explains that “our mindset is, we know our customers’ problems so damn well, and we are actually on path to be cash flow positive at the end of this year.”

Richard Brunelle, the director of automation for the American logistics group at Yusen Logistics, a South Korean shipping giant, helped get the startup pointed in the right direction. Brunelle is responsible for automation across about 30 facilities in the U.S. There, Yusen uses fixed automation, like conveyors and sorters, but it is still piloting new technology like trailer-unloading robots and autonomous floor scrubbers.

Finding more ways to put technology like that to work is Brunelle’s priority: Yusen’s UK subsidiary has built out a fully autonomous facility and now a similar plan is in the works in the U.S. When Brunelle met Pawar, Destro was focused on a different challenge in the space—picking and pack, the process by which various goods are sorted into single packages.

“We make that operation less labor intensive, and we get away from the paper,” Brunelle said. “Everything is now systematic.”