Category Archives: Automation

Ryan Falkenberg is the co-Chief Executive of CLEVVA. Photo: Supplied

DURBAN Automation, traditionally linked with fears of job losses, looks set to make life easier for humans across the globe in 2020.

From freeing up workers inside organisations to providing excellent customer experiences, the robots are here, and theyre helping make business better.

1. Automation is taking off: Robotic process automation (RPA) software revenue grew 63.1 percent in 2018 to $846 million, making it the fastest-growing segment of the global enterprise software market, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner expected RPA software revenue to reach $1.3 billion in 2019. Forrester is predicting the RPA market will grow to $2.9 billion in 2021. This means well be seeing more and more companies implementing RPA, resulting in staff and customers engaging with digital workers more frequently, whether we realise it or not.

2. Automation efforts will continue to focus on the back office: The biggest adopters of RPA so far, Gartner says, are banks, insurance companies, telcos and utility companies - all of which are facing increasing pressure from disruptor competitors, and looking to gain a competitive edge from their technology investments. Given their legacy environments, RPA offers them an effective way to quickly realise efficiency gains without major restructuring.

3. The need for end-to-end automation will shift the focus to the front office: As mentioned, RPA excels in system-driven process automation, which makes it good for lots of things, but not everything. 2020 will see companies getting the best out of RPA by combining it with technologies that can automate front office logic. This logic, contained in knowledge bases and staff brains, is increasingly being handled by specialist front-office digital workers. These digital workers ensure all the right questions get asked, answers get given and information gets collected in context, across staff-assisted and digital channels. They then work directly with their RPA digital co-workers to ensure the resulting back-office processing is performed flawlessly, repetitively, and tirelessly. This combination of front-office and back-office digital workers is forming a dream team that is allowing companies to achieve true end-to-end automation in a consistent, compliant and context-relevant way, at scale.

4. Automation will accelerate change in the job market: The greater adoption of automation in 2020 will accelerate the reshaping of the current job landscape. The World Economic Forums 2018 Future of Jobs report highlighted that while 50 percent of the companies surveyed said they expect automation to reduce their full-time workforce to some extent by 2022, 38% said they expect to extend their workforce to productivity-enhancing roles and many expect automation to lead to new roles being created. What these new roles will look like will most likely become a lot clearer over the next few years. What is clear is that automation can unlock human potential by removing the need for people to perform robotic, repetitive jobs that currently dehumanise them. It allows people to think more, dream more and communicate more. They can specialise in the optimisation of the customer experience rather than the replication of the company formula. Schools, colleges and universities that continue to teach memory-based and replication thinking will find themselves increasingly irrelevant.

Ryan Falkenberg is the co-Chief Executive of CLEVVA.

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Four automation trends to watch out for in 2020 - IOL

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There is an ever greater focus on the impact of automation on work and what it will mean for jobs. Certain kinds of routine work are on the front lines, including the analytical activities of administrative assistants and bank cashiers, and the manual jobs of warehouse assistants, assembly line workers, and delivery drivers. Many tasks within these jobs are likely to be automated: For instance, delivery workers now scan packages and generate automated driving statistics.

The agenda for routine, lower-skilled work in this new world includes upskilling (giving employees access to new and often higher-value tasks within the same job) or re-skilling (making them able to accomplish a completely new set of tasks). Neither of these undertakings is straightforward, however. Bringing new skills to the workplace inevitably brings a range of stakeholders into the picture, including the companies doing the re-skilling, the government and education systems that help out, and the employees themselves.

Weve heard from managerial populations about how theyre navigating this agenda. In a survey of CEOs, for example, two-thirds (67%) said they have a responsibility to retrain employees whose tasks and jobs are at risk of being automated out of existence.

What has not been adequately heard in this conversation are the voices of employees themselves. How are people who perform low- to medium-paying jobs thinking about upskilling and re-skilling? What do they see as the opportunities and challenges?

These were our starting questions in a series of focus groups and roundtable conversations held with people whose jobs are most susceptible to automation. My research company, Hot Spots Movement, collaborated with BritainThinks, a strategy consultancy, and Capita, a consulting, digital services, and software business, to speak with people across the U.K., including those who work for Capita. Our research was published in a November 2019 report.

The conversations were fascinating. They gave us deeper insight into the working lives of those on the front line of automation, while also highlighting key areas in which future action is needed. We heard four key themes: excitement about the upsides, the need for preparation to reduce anxiety, the importance of getting change right the first time, and the impact of personal coaching.

During the course of our conversations, many people told us they could see or imagine the positive impact of automation on their jobs and the tasks they performed. They described how automation had the potential to remove some of the most boring and repetitive aspects of their roles.

The automation of scheduling has made my job more efficient and a lot quicker, is how one delivery driver described it. It has smoothed out the little frustrations and helps me meet my performance targets.

Automation has already meant fewer manual tasks and more intellectually challenging tasks for some. It also has meant more exciting work and the possibility of securing new and different jobs.

As we spoke to people, we learned that one of the details that really affected their experiences was how much opportunity they had to prepare, both for a single automation event and for the longer-term trajectory of automation.

Employees felt that changes worked well when they had some control over making their own plans for managing their future options. For example, one person said, We heard about it relatively early, and the staff welcomed it with open arms it was something we really needed.

Without advance preparation and prior insight, however, employees were left to worry and speculate about potential changes. As one person said, Weve introduced bar coding into the store, so we need one [clerk] instead of four. Thats good; it saves money. But what happens to the other three people?

For many employees, following the path of automation means they must let go of some component of their jobs to robots or AI while developing new skills to perform new tasks. Some of these new skills are simply a slight expansion of current skills. Others require new ways of operating.

Getting these new approaches right can be tricky. When everything clicks, people really feel excited. As one person remarked, Its satisfying when it works there is nothing better than pressing go and it works how you want. Getting new changes right boosted peoples confidence.

For those who did not have sufficient on-the-job support, the chances of getting it wrong were high. People described how changes that didnt go smoothly sapped their enthusiasm and confidence. When things went wrong, managers were quite hard to get ahold of, said one discussion participant. Technology that didnt operate as planned or was poorly implemented brought a lot of rework and undermined peoples trust in the new systems.

Training budgets are tight in most companies, and nowhere is this more evident than in low-paid work, where it can be hard to make a case for training. Its no surprise, therefore, that efforts to re-skill the most routine jobs often focus on low-cost e-learning.

Thats fine to a point. In our discussions, employees said they were comfortable with e-learning, describing how they already learn at home from video platforms like YouTube. (There are, for example, enormously popular online cooking channels that teach new skills.) Many embrace video tutorials, and we heard examples of people being self-taught and proud of it. But there was a general feeling that without the support of peers and managers, e-learning was just not enough.

To capitalize on employees initial excitement about the potential of automation, company leaders need to take four actions before they make changes:

Build enthusiasm. Leaders need to create projects that show how jobs will change. They need to give employees an opportunity to see the benefits themselves.

Lay out plans in advance. Anxiety significantly impacts the possibility of change and learning. Leaders can reduce this by clearly describing what the implication of automation will be and creating a pathway that describes how employees will be upskilled in their current jobs or re-skilled into new jobs.

Provide no-pressure run-throughs. Leaders must help employees get change right the first time. People we spoke with talked about the importance of getting clear walk-through demonstrations and the opportunity to try out new technologies and responsibilities in a safe space.

Arrange ongoing face-to-face training. Leaders need to be sure to supplement e-learning with peer support groups and coaching.

Lynda Gratton is a professor of management practice at London Business School and director of the schools Human Resource Strategy in Transforming Companies program. She is coauthor of The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity (Bloomsbury, 2016). She tweets @lyndagratton.

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What Employees Tell Us About Automation and Re-skilling - MIT Sloan

Automation has put a huge dent in the need for jobs in the auto industry. There's no need for so many cashiers because people can check-out on machines.

One study suggests the next wave of automation will wipe out work in industries that make up a big chunk of Orlando's workforce.

Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics, Kempler Industries, an Illinois-based machinery buyer and seller, listed the jobs most susceptible to automation. The study also lists the regions that could suffer the most potential job loss.

That chunk of the workforce is made up of hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks, secretaries, administrative assistants, and textile bleaching and dyeing machine operators all jobs the analysis forecasts will be on the robot chopping block.

Las Vegas, at 31 percent, was the only metro to edge-out Orlando on Kempler's list of impending automation-doom. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metros finished third and fourth.

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New study says the next wave of automation is coming for Orlando's workforce - Orlando Weekly

Convoy CEO Dan Lewis, right, speaks with Ben Gilbert, left, and David Rosenthal at a recording of the Acquired podcast at the University of Washington in Seattle on Tuesday. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)

Convoy has reached another milestone on the long road toward complete automation of the trucking industrys brokering process.

The Seattle-based digital freight network announced Wednesday that it has achieved fully automated load pricing. The breakthrough comes less than a year after Convoy achieved fully automated load matching. Convoy says the combined pieces of brokering, which traditionally involved manual, time-consuming work identifying available trucks and negotiating on bids via calls and emails, can be handled by its platform in minutes with no calls or emails.

Convoy has come a long way since CEO and co-founder Dan Lewis was visiting shippers and truck stops, learning about the market and getting feedback on Convoys early ideas. Speaking Tuesday night at a live recording of the Acquired podcast in Seattle, he recalled walking into a shippers office for the first time, so nervous that all he could do was ask to use the bathroom.

But as he talked with drivers and shippers about the concept, Lewis found an industry in need of transformation. That was in contrast with some of his past ideas.

Id had some really bad ideas really bad ideas, said Lewis, a veteran of companies including Amazon, Google and Microsoft. This one, every time I shared it with someone from the industry, they were excited about it and felt like it was necessary.

Fast-forward more than four years, and Convoy is one of the Seattle regions unicorns, valued at more than $1 billion. The 4-year-old startup, backed by high-profile investors including Jeff Bezos, Reid Hoffman, Bill Gates and U2s Bono, competes against traditional brokers such as C.H. Robinson, the largest U.S. freight broker, and newer players such as Uber Freight.

Convoy says its new milestone in automated pricing will help it operate more efficiently, and lead to reduced costs for shippers and full trucks for carriers.

Weve been working for the past four years on improving our pricing models, Convoy Chief Product Officer Ziad Ismail told GeekWire. And as weve been building more and more density we have more and more data for us to train our models. Weve also gotten more drivers to use our app. The combination of those two things have led us to 100-percent automated pricing in Convoys top markets.

Those markets include Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, and Los Angeles, among others.

Truckers earn more when they get more load options, better routes, and make fewer empty mile trips. Convoy aims to increase capacity and decrease costs for shippers with more truckers on its platform. Automated brokering produces further benefit for both sides of the marketplace, the company said.

The technological breakthrough comes just a month after Convoys latest funding round of $400 million, at a $2.7 billion valuation. And in Ismails view, its a top tech accomplishment for the company, alongsideAutomated Reloads, which uses machine learning to group full-truckload shipments for carriers and is helping reduce empty mile carbon emissions.

Once you automate the core of the marketplace, which is the matching and pricing side, your ability to run experiments ends up being completely different, Ismail said. When you have human-based processes, trying to run small experiments to test differences is very difficult. But once you have a digital network, you can innovate, experiment and learn at a completely different pace. And so thats kind of what were seeing now, its setting Convoy up really to experiment the way that you would expect a true technology company to experiment.

Speaking with Acquired podcast co-hosts Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal at the University of Washington in Seattle last night, Lewis recalled overhearing skeptical brokers cast aspersions on Convoys early plans, under the theory that computers dont match freight; people match freight.

Such skepticism from traditional players put Convoy in a position to write the rules and be the first to come up with the models for key parts of the process including payments, matching and providing data and insights to customers, Lewis said.

In a sign of how much things have changed, Lewis didnt outright dismiss the question of whether Convoy could someday operate a third-party marketplace for other brokers, similar to what Amazon does with its marketplace for third-party sellers. It could move in that direction at some point, he acknowledged.

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Convoys latest digital trucking breakthrough is 100% automation of the load pricing process - GeekWire

The twin trends of rapid population aging and automation have been unprecedented in speed and scope. Both academia and industry have dedicated extensive research to understanding the direction, magnitude, variations, and impacts of these separate trends.

In the first report of this two-part series, Marsh & McLennan Advantage Insights, in collaboration with Mercer and Oliver Wyman (each an affiliate of Guy Carpenter), contributed to this literature by focusing on how automation affects workers above the age of 50 across 15 major markets in the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. The report showed that older workers are at moderate-to high risk of being displaced by automation, with those in advanced and emerging markets in Asia at highest risk.

There is broad consensus in the literature that older workers not only experience major difficulties in the labor market, but also face severe fallout from displacement due to automation. Displacement leads to a more precarious financial situation, as well as adverse health effects both physically and sociopsychologically. These are serious issues that have commanded increasing attention from governments through research and public policy but governmental efforts alone, unfortunately, will not be enough. The call has been growing for companies to be part of the solution and help ensure adequate social protection and well-being for older workers. This now constitutes a critical part of the discourse on healthcare and inequality in many countries.

At the same time, many companies now also find themselves under pressure to remain competitive by undergoing digital transformation. This focus on the technological side of organizational transformation has led many organizations to overlook the plight of older workers, regarding the problem as NIMBY (Not In My Backyard), until they realize that they themselves are increasingly relying on an aging workforce. In turn, companies will also increasingly face other macro problems associated with population aging, such as talent shortages and loss of institutional knowledge, heightening the need to keep older workers productive for longer.

In this paper, the contributors propose potential solutions to these challenges. They first re-conceptualize the perception of older workers through unpacking their values as experienced workers those above the age of 50 whose tenure within organizations and industries has provided them with a wealth of experience and knowledge that companies can leverage to enhance competitiveness. This term will be used throughout the paper. The report takes a corporate perspective to the intersection of aging and automation to argue that companies must seriously challenge current dominant narrative of older workers and seek to build more age-inclusive organizations. The question is, how do new technologies feature in this new vision?

Proposed answers to this question have focused on technological potentials how technology can be applied and deployed to aid older workers. To complement this, we propose that companies approach the question from a workforce perspective to cultivate and leverage a tech-empowered experienced workforce: Many companies have underestimated experienced workers capacity to contribute, as well as the potential synergies between technology and an experienced workforce, and would benefit greatly by directing their energy to foster this synergy. The strategy proposed here can serve as a blueprint for these areas of synergy, thereby laying the foundation for wider initiatives to bolster organizational resilience to fast-paced technological changes as a whole.

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The Twin Trends of Aging and Automation - GC Capital Ideas

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--HelloSign, a leading eSignature and digital workflow platform, today announced it has been positioned by Aragon Research, Inc. in the Leader section of the Tech Spectrum for Workflow and Content Automation, 2020.1

HelloSign which offers eSignature, digital workflow, and electronic fax solutions helps more than 80,000 customers and millions of people close deals faster, onboard new hires with ease, and automate their document-centric processes.

The Aragon Tech Spectrum is an evaluation of vendors in emerging and mature markets based on their strategy and performance. According to the report, Workflow and content automation (WCA) is becoming the de facto way to automate business processes that involve documents. WCA overlaps with robotic process automation (RPA) but it focuses on the machine creation and routing of documents. This shift to the automation of content represents a change in how documents will be produced.

We believe being positioned as a leader in the Workflow and Content Automation Tech Spectrum is a validation of the value our solutions deliver to businesses who want to simplify complex processes, says Whitney Bouck, COO, HelloSign. This is a great reflection of the deep investments weve made in automating document-based workflows.

Disclosure

Aragon Research does not endorse vendors, or their products or services that are referenced in its research publications, and does not advise users to select those vendors that are rated the highest. Aragon Research publications consist of the opinions of Aragon Research and Advisory Services organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Aragon Research provides its research publications and the information contained in them "AS IS," without warranty of any kind.

About HelloSign

HelloSign simplifies work for millions of individuals. Over 80,000 customers world-wide trust the HelloSign platform which includes eSignature, digital workflow and electronic fax solutions with HelloSign, HelloWorks and HelloFax to automate and manage their most important business transactions. For more information visit http://www.hellosign.com.

Aragon Research. The Aragon Research Tech SpectrumTM for Workflow and Content Automation, 2020 by Jim Lundy, December 2019

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Aragon Research Positions HelloSign as a Leader in the Tech Spectrum for Workflow and Content Automation, 2020 - Business Wire

Business concept. Improving productivity, reliability and business processes. Automation concept

Its been a banner year for the RPA (Robotic Process Automation) software market.The fundings have definitely been eye-catching.In April, UiPath announced a Series D round for $568 million, led by Coatue, for a valuation of $7 billion.

Then last month there was Automation Anywhere, which raised $290 million in a Series B round led by Salesforce Ventures for a valuation of $6.8 billion.

So why all the interest?Simply put, RPA has been shown to generate quick and high levels of ROI (Return On Investment) for customers.The software essentially automates worker activities that are often tedious and repetitive.

And with all the money sloshing around in the RPA space, we should expect quite a bit of action next year. Vendors with a combination of cash and vision will succeed, said Ryan Duguid, who is the chief of evangelism and advanced technology at Nintex.Theyll flesh out their stacks by combining RPA, traditional BPM, workflow, and cloud services, layering in process documentation, process discovery and analytics, and looking to enable a virtuous cycle of process improvement.

His company has already been working on this expansion strategy.Nintex acquired EnableSoft (for drag-and-drop functions) and Promapp (a process mapping and documentation platform).

Keep in mind that RPA has been concentrated in certain industries, like finance.But it seems like a pretty good bet that the technology will see expansion across more sectors.As RPA adoption approaches near-ubiquity, well see an uptick in public sector adoption over the next year, ultimately improving citizens access to critical public services, like Social Security, said Prince Kohli, who is the CTO of Automation Anywhere.The RPA benefits of speed, reduced costs and productivity are especially relevant to this sector.

Jon Theuerkauf, the Chief Customer Officer at Blue Prism, agrees with this. Well see RPA extend its reach across mainstream industries such as the medical, pharma and telecom spaces given the high volumes of sensitive data, he said.Ultimately, a true connected-RPA cloud-based platform will look like the re-creation of a human being and possess a skill-set that allows the platform to collaborate with employees on key day-to-day tasks.

But in terms of the core RPA technology, expect to see dynamism in the new year as well.Here are some areas to consider:

Although, the biggest technology trend will likely be AI (Artificial Intelligence).Executives will prioritize opportunities to automate more aggressively, linking AI projects to KPIssuch as revenue growth, cost reduction and enhanced customer experience, said Bill Hobbib, who is the SVP of Marketing at DataRobot.Executives also will place greater emphasis on change management and encourage greater involvement from business usersrather than just data scientists or specialist teamsto increase their AI capabilities across more lines of business and processes.

All great, right? Absolutely. But as with any technology, there are nagging issues too.

For example, there are over 70 vendors on the marketand many will have a tough time standing out. Technology and solutions are getting increasingly similar, so if a smaller company has a true differentiator, or a solution that bridges a gap, they will be prime for acquisition, said Ray LeBlanc, who is the product strategy manager at Verint. These smaller companies are also more dependent upon partnerships, and we will likely see M&A activity by SIs and other large service providers and BPOs.

There will also likely be some reality checks with RPA, as the hype is at fever pitch.Next year, the market will wise up and realize that not everything that claims to be RPA is actually RPA, said Francis Carden, who is the vice president of digital automation and robotics at Pega.In truth RPA is just one component of a broader intelligent automation platform that must be combined with other automation technologies.

Finally, as RPA continues to grow, the industry will come under increasing scrutiny.This seems inevitable.

RPA will be on the global stage, said Guy Kirkwood, who is the Chief Evangelist at UiPath.Extra-governmental organizations, like the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, will discuss RPA in the context of jobs, wages and global economics.

Tom (@ttaulli) is the author of the book,Artificial Intelligence Basics: A Non-Technical Introduction.

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RPA (Robotic Process Automation): Whats In Store For 2020? - Forbes

Factory connectivity and communications have become cornerstone technology trends for automation and control engineers in the last 10+ years as the development of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has emerged as a corporate objective. But as we head into 2020, edge computing is evolving into a unifying force for machine designers implementing computing at the edge architectures that provide performance and security in a world offering a wide range of communication solutions.

New edge computing architectures are leveraging edge nodes and gateways to connect IoT devices and subsystems with different types of data centers (private, public or hybrid). Edge nodes perform local processing and storage operations. (Image source: Industrial Internet Consortium

A new white paper from the Industrial Internet Consortium, The Edge Computing Advantage explores not only the business benefits of edge computing but also how it has become a keystone in the IIoTs evolution in the smart factory.

The authors of the white paper conclude that edge computing has grown steadily as a way to extend the technology of data centers closer to the physical devices within the factory. Cloud computing offers flexibility and scale, offering benefits by connecting systems, but also need to be balanced against increased security risks.

Emergence of edge computing paradigm

Given that many industrial facilities have maintained a so-called airgap between plants and the Internet (by not being physically connected to the Internet), edge computing has continued to emerge. The benefits: better use of bandwidth on factory networks, reduced latency and variation of data along with use of local data and computation that improves privacy, reliability, resiliency and safety.

Along with these practical benefits, edge computing technology itself is providing a flexible approach that uses a fully distributed computing model between IoT devices and layers of edge nodes that provide communications to the data center.

According to the white paper, the topology of the network enables IoT systems to make use of layers of edge nodes and gateways to interconnect IoT devices and connected subsystems with various types of data centers. The cloud is the highest-order resource, and is usually implemented in large, protected data centers. It may be public, private or a hybrid to process and store data for specific vertical applications. Edge nodes perform local processing and storage operations.

IT and OT convergence

Efficient, reliable and maintainable Industrial IoT data handling presents significant challenges because the data management solutions that exist today have been mainly designed for information technology (IT) applications. A customized solution to fill the gap between the IT and OT (operations technology) applications is required.

A wide range of suppliers are providing intelligent IoT gateways to help build seamless data processing solutions that bridge this gap. Gateways are being used to mass-deploy IoT devices in the field, acquire data and route it on-demand to a centralized system, other devices or a remote site. The use of edge nodes along with traditional routers, gateways and firewalls provides both storage and computation capabilities that is distributed across devices, nodes and the data center itself.

Opportunities and challenges

The white paper concludes with a discussion of both the opportunities and challenges that this new computing paradigm is creating. Whats expected in 2020 is a continuation of the blurred lines from the edge to the data center, as cloud-computing and edge-computing architectural models merge and emerge.

To read the full IIC white paper, view this PDF.

Al Presher is a veteran contributing writer for Design News, covering automation and control, motion control, power transmission, robotics, and fluid power.

January 28-30:North America's largest chip, board, and systems event,DesignCon, returns to Silicon Valleyfor its 25th year!The premier educational conference and technology exhibition, this three-day event brings together the brightest minds across the high-speed communications and semiconductor industries, who are looking to engineer the technology of tomorrow. DesignCon is your rocket to the future. Ready to come aboard?Register to attend!

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Edge computing key industrial automation trend in 2020 - DesignNews

As 2019 enters its final weeks, it seems timely to start looking at what sectors are poised to close out the year with a bang.

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For this first installment, were concentrating on industries that attracted both high funding totals and a lot of individual funding rounds. The methodology, which well detail more below, 1 focuses most heavily on North American startups and attempts to avoid the distortive effects of single supergiant rounds on funding totals.

We ended up focusing on four sectors that are attracting rising funding: Fintech, real estate, insurance and automation. All are seeing particular traction at the late stage, where checks are largest.

Below, we unpack the numbers and trendlines for each industry in more detail:

Fintech And Banking

This seems to be the year that every startup decided to become a bank. And every venture capitalist decided to write a check to one or more of those startups.

Much of the funding went to neobanks, a fancy term to describe upstart digital banks working on everything from savings and checking accounts to mobile debit cards. Many are focused on bringing banking services to both consumers and businesses that have previously been underserved by traditional banks.

Investors are apparently banking on some big returns. Companies focused on fintech, banking and mobile payments in North and South America brought in $11.7 billion in 2019, per Crunchbase (see query). Thats up from $9.2 billion in all of 2018, per Crunchbase.

It wasnt just a handful of giant investments either. This years funding was spread across more than 700 known rounds for startups.

Still, supergiant rounds did help boost the totals. One of the best known upstart banking brands, Chime, pulled in an astonishing $700 million across two mega-rounds this year, pushing its valuation to $5.8 billion. Brazils Nubank, meanwhile, raised a whopping $400 million in a single July round.

Real Estate And Property Management

The single biggest headline generator in the venture-backed real estate space for 2019 was undoubtedly the implosion of WeWork and its ill-fated IPO. But setting that debacle aside, other trendlines for the real estate startup sphere this year have been pretty positive.

As of early December, investors had pumped just over $5.2 billion into an assortment of U.S. startups. The largest funding recipients include Knotel, the furnished workspace rental provider, Knock, the online home-selling platform, and Compass, a tech-enabled real estate brokerage. Altogether, those three companies raised nearly $1.2 billion in funding rounds this year alone. Other potentially less capital-intensive areas of proptech also attracted investors favor, including a bevy of property management software providers.

Insurance

Insurance is a startup sector thats been growing steadily for a few years now, and it hit its highest funding levels to date in 2019.

As of mid-December, U.S. companies in the insurance and insuretech categories secured just over $4.75 billion in seed through late stage funding (see query). Thats up from $3.4 billion in 2018.

A huge wave of seed-stage insurance startups launched three to five years ago, and thats one of the reasons big financings and investment totals are rising so much. Hot companies in that cohort are rapidly maturing, and theyre seeking ever-larger later-stage rounds. Corporate venture arms of established insurance companies are also active in the space, contributing to rising valuations.

Clover Health, a provider of health plans for Medicare recipients, closed the largest funding round, a $500 million Series E. Root Insurance, which offers car insurance with rates tied to driver behavior, raised $350 million, while Lemonade, a home and renters insurance provider, pulled in $300 million.

Automation

Automation is essentially shorthand for getting technology to do something that used to require a human. In the dawn of the industrial age, this generally entailed huge, heavy machines voraciously sucking down fuel. Today, its likely a software program capable of running on a pocket-sized device.

To that end, automation software developers are securing rising sums of venture capital. In 2019, U.S. companies in the space pulled in $2.89 billion in known funding, per Crunchbase data. (See query.), exceeding 2018 levels. This years total is expected to rise higher in coming months as more late-reported funding rounds get added to the database.

Familiar names topped the list of largest funding recipients. UiPath, which develops software to automate repetitive tasks for office workers, pulled in $568 million in Series D financing, bringing total funding to date to $1 billion. Rival Automation Anywhere, meanwhile, closed on a fresh $290 million last month.

Its Not All Up

Overall, 2019 is shaping up as yet another really strong year for U.S. venture funding. The rise of supergiant funding rounds, a robust fundraising environment for well-regarded venture firms, and growing momentum across a host of hot sectors are all factors contributing to keeping the investments flowing.

But while this piece highlights standout sectors, it wasnt all rosy in startup-land this year. Thats why, for the next installment in this end-of-year series, well look at sectors that posted significant declines in 2019.

For now, though, well end on an optimistic note, observing that while everything was up, automation, real estate, fintech and insurance all posted pretty impressive venture funding tallies.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias.

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This Was A Big Year For Fintech, Real Estate, Insurance, And Automation - Crunchbase News

Working with hospitality partner and Las Vegas Convention Center food service provider, Centerplate, Picnic will allow CES attendees, for the first time, to enjoy pizza produced by its acclaimed robot using AI, cloud and automation technology

Seattle-based Picnic, an innovator of food production technology and Robotics-as-a-Service (RaaS) solutions, announced today that its automated food assembly system has been selected by Centerplate, a leader in live event hospitality, to serve attendees of the worlds largest technology event, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), January 7-10, 2020, at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Centerplate will use and showcase Picnics robot, with capabilities of producing up to 300 12-inch customized pizzas an hour, on the CES show floor. Specific location details for Picnics robot and where to enjoy its pizza will be revealed at hellopicnic.com, prior to the start of CES 2020.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191218005222/en/

Centerplate Executive Chef Taylor Park stands in front of Picnic's automated pizza assembly robot at T-Mobile Park, home of the Seattle Mariners. Continuing their relationship with Centerplate, Picnic will now allow attendees of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (January 7-10, 2020) to enjoy pizza produced by its acclaimed robot that uses AI, cloud and automation technology. (Photo by Kyu Han of Picnic)

"Picnics distinct culmination of food production customization and throughput, smart data and cloud analytics is quickly resonating with food service operators," said Clayton Wood, CEO of Picnic. "Our continued relationship with Centerplate illustrates our ability to tailor our offerings to the specific needs of our partners and jointly transform the food experience for their consumers. This is one robot that wont be a CES exhibitor only showing futuristic concepts; it is already in use in real-world kitchen settings and will only continue to grow its capabilities, as will be seen through Picnics delivery of mass customization food production and great-tasting pizza provided to CES attendees."

Centerplate, providing live event hospitality for more than 115 million guests each year at hundreds of prominent sports, entertainment and convention venues, revealed, in October 2019, that Picnics successful pilot was operating at their T-Mobile Park location, home of the Seattle Mariners. In addition to todays announcement, Centerplate is also using Picnics robot to provide all of the pizzas at Enchant Christmas, the current winter wonderland holiday event, taking place at the stadium through December 29th.

"Picnics automated food assembly platform has shown an ability to enhance quality and speed of service for our kitchen operations," said Steve Pangburn, CEO of Centerplate. "Our initial pilot with Picnic was very positive and their differentiated capabilities are proving beneficial. We look forward to introducing Picnic to the Las Vegas Convention Center in January and helping them scale their technology in an effective way."

The Picnic platform is initially focused on the production of high-volume, customizable pizzas. However, the companys technology is applicable to other food categories. "Bun, bowl, tortilla or plate our automated assembly system is designed for and capable of improving the businesses of many food service segments," added Wood.

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Many U.S. and international food service providers are recognizing that Picnics platform offers unique capabilities to address common business-thwarting challenges and pain points. As part of the systems intelligence, deep learning AI technology continually learns and helps to meet the changing needs of all types of food service operators, keeping them more competitive and protecting their brands.

"Picnic continues to experience increasing interest in our technology and solutions from large chains to mom and pop storefronts, and emerging food service venues, such as virtual restaurants and ghost kitchens," said Wood.

The compact, freestanding system integrates Picnics issued U.S. patent and other U.S. and international patent-pending modular, configurable equipment, with its software, cloud and deep learning technology.

The platform only requires a small footprint and the modular, configurable equipment makes it flexible to slip into a wide array of stationary and mobile kitchen formats. It is extremely flexible and painless to set up. Its safe to work around and only minimal training is required.

Picnic will deliver, install and maintain the system, and provide platform and software updates for a monthly fee with no money upfront. The company can also provide custom design software solutions for operators to integrate with existing point-of-sale and ordering systems.

Companies interested in installing Picnics new platform in their food operations can contact the company by visiting hellopicnic.com, emailing info@hellopicnic.com or calling 206.717.3455.

About Picnic

Founded in 2016 Vivid Robotics, Inc., (dba Picnic) (hellopicnic.com), has collected an experienced team of food and technology industry veterans to develop and provide specialized intelligent technology and exclusive solutions for the food service and hospitality industries. Restaurants, convenience and grocery stores, university and corporate campuses, casinos, hotels, cruise lines, sports venues, catering groups, healthcare cafeterias, small kiosks, ghost kitchen operators, mobile food operations, food trucks, delivery and military sites are among the many segments poised to benefit from the companys automated food assembly platform integrating RaaS, software, cloud and deep learning technology.

Follow Picnic on hellopicnic.com, facebook.com/picnicgroup; linkedin.com/company/picnicnews; twitter.com/picnicnews; and Instagram.com/picnicnews.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191218005222/en/

Contacts

Mike McLaughlinmike@hellopicnic.com

Teresa FaustiTeresa@fausticommunications.com

Amanda Barryabarry@summitslc.com

Link:

Picnic Announces Its Automated Pizza Assembly Robot Will Serve Attendees of the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7-10, 2020 - Yahoo Finance