Masayoshi son
Alessandro Di Ciommo | NurPhoto | Getty images
LONDON – Japanese technology group SoftBank has acquired 40% of Norwegian warehouse automation company 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 deal values AutoStore, which was founded in 1996, at $ 7.7 billion.
SoftBank, which has made a series of investments in e-commerce and robotics in recent years, is buying the stake from US private equity group Thomas H Lee Partners and Swedish venture capital firm EQT.
“We view AutoStore as a foundational technology that enables fast and cost-effective logistics for companies around the world,” SoftBank CEO and Founder Masayoshi Son said in a statement.
He added, “We look forward to partnering with AutoStore to expand aggressively across end markets and geographies.”
AutoStore was founded by Ingvar Hognaland and is headquartered in Nedre Vats, a village near Bergen. AutoStore has developed a so-called “cube storage automation”, which allows robots to maximize storage space in warehouses.
It says it has deployed 20,000 of its robots in 600 locations in 35 countries and that its technology allows customers to store either four times the inventory in the same space, or all of their existing inventory in 25% of the space. AutoStore customers include the American electronics store Best Buy, the Swedish telco Siemens and the British supermarket chain Asda.
Karl Johan Lier, president and CEO of AutoStore, said in a statement that SoftBank’s support will help it grow in the Asia-Pacific region.
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SoftBank’s son believes machines will outsmart humans for the next 30 years.
Through the SoftBank Vision Fund, the billionaire has pumped massive amounts of capital into companies like Arm, Improbable and Brain Corp as part of an effort to ensure that SoftBank has a financial interest in companies working on next-generation technologies.
SoftBank has also acquired shares in several logistics companies that can improve supply chains for e-commerce giants such as Alibaba, in which SoftBank also has an interest.
For example, SoftBank backed US warehouse robotics group Berkshire Gray in 2019. The logistics automation systems provider announced in February that it was going public through a merger with a blank check company Revolution Acceleration Acquisition Corp in a deal that values the combined company at $ 2 , 7 billion. .
Nathan Benaich, a venture capital investor with a focus on artificial intelligence, told CNBC that the pandemic has clearly been a “boon” to warehouse logistics and fulfillment companies as they are the “backbone of online commerce.”
“AutoStore, from peers like Berkshire Gray, Ocado Robotics and 6 River Systems, have been ‘overnight’ stores of success in robotics for nearly 10-20 years,” he said. “They have been quietly building their capabilities and warehouse footprint during that time and are now aggressively responding to rising customer demand.”