Key Findings:

• Growth sector Robotics: The technology sector Robotics, with its subsectors Commercial, Consumer, Industrial, Medical, Drones and Enablers, is a significant growth sector. Between 2014 and 2019 the total VC investment volume has increased almost six-fold (from EUR 131m to EUR 769m) and the number of deals has tripled (from 69 to 212). The Medical Robots subsector is the leading subsector by total deal volume with mega-deals from companies such as CMR Surgical (EUR 216m in 2019 and EUR 85m in 2018), Quantum Surgical (EUR 41m in 2018) and Robocath (EUR 40m in 2020). Industrial applications and Robotic Enablers (technology and component suppliers) are the dominating subsectors by deal count
• No COVID-19 impact has been identified to date: The number of deals in the first half of 2020 does not suggest any COVID-19 impact (yet). Since transactions of this kind usually have preparatory periods of several months and their closings are often preceded by months of preliminary discussions, it can be assumed that the deals closed in the first half of 2020 were already in advanced discussions before COVID-19 and that the COVID-19 impact will become apparent during the second half of the year. While on the one hand, the contact and travel restrictions make fundraising processes more difficult and many investors are more cautious due to the uncertain economic consequences, on the other hand, the market prospects for robotic solutions, especially in the post-COVID-19 world, should experience a significant boom and make deals in the sector particularly interesting
• Small deals dominate: Most deals with disclosed transaction volumes are smaller than EUR 10m and 57% of the deals belong to the category of early-stage financing transactions (accelerator, incubator, seed & angel transactions). This indicates that the robotics industry is still a very young industry – but today’s seed companies are tomorrow’s later-stage companies and therefore increasing volumes and IPOs are expected in the next few years
• German companies too secretive: Although Germany ranks in the same region as France (99) and the UK (86) in terms of number of transactions (66), the publicly disclosed transaction volumes for Germany is falling sharply. As only about 18% of the German transactions have disclosed transaction volumes (in contrast to e.g. the UK and France with 45-48% of their deals), Germany’s total transaction volume only amounts to EUR 80m (UK EUR 507m and France EUR 308m), making start-ups in other countries appear more strongly financed than their German competitors. However, looking at average transaction volumes, all countries are playing in the same league