Ripcord’s $40 million Series B will pay for more file digitizing robots and human jobs


Bay Area startup Ripcord just scored a $40 million Series B, following its successful launch earlier this year. By all accounts, the company has apparently hit the ground running with its decidedly unsexy goal of using robots to digitize paper records for large corporations and organizations.

According to CEO Alex Fielding, Ripcord already has a number of Fortune 100 companies on board, along with recent deals struck with UCLA and construction giant, Bechtel. The startup is working to distinguish itself with an end-to-end solution that includes, among other things, the aforementioned paper digitizing robots and Canopy, its consumer-facing cloud-based software, designed to actually access those records once digitized.

“I think Ripcord is really finding our stride now as the only company is the space that’s really focused on end to end,” Fielding tells TechCrunch. “We build our own hardware and we have our own people operating our machines. It’s our own software, and we’re using AI and ML. I think it’s become really refreshing to clients who are used to paying five separate bills to manage their records.”

The latest Icon Ventures-led round follows a $9.5 million Series A back in March, which also served as a sort of public-facing launch party for the company. The investors this time out are about half-new, and Icon General Partner Jeb Miller will also be joining the company’s board as part of the deal.

Fielding says the money will go toward the development of new robots and staff expansion. Ripcord’s current 50-person staff is expected to increase by more than 100 by the end of 2018, many of whom will be located in the company’s new Hayward, California-based production facility. The company is also exploring new markets and Fielding tells me that it’s looking to potentially license its proprietary robots to third-parties as part of the company’s future growth.

Published
Categorized as Fundings

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *