Kumar, who is also the company’s co-founder, says regulations will need to evolve alongside rapid advances in robotics, but dismisses dystopian sci-fi depictions of robots eventually supplanting and dominating humans, arguing that people will remain in the loop for the foreseeable future.
Addverb is now betting on what Kumar calls the next frontier of robotics — collaborative robots, quadrupeds and humanoids, as he highlighted that the global race in physical AI has begun and India has a strong opportunity to build globally-competitive companies.
On the widespread fears of job losses, Kumar said although some repetitive and physically-demanding tasks would inevitably be automated, robotics would create new jobs as it boosts industrial productivity.
“So humans will always be in the loop, according to me. Regulation has to quickly catch up with what is happening in the world of robotics and automation, but at least for the next 20 years, I don’t think there will be any robot that will control (dominate) human beings. That is my bet, and in any automation…there will always be humans in the loop,” he told PTI in an interview.
Kumar urged young professionals to continuously upgrade their skills.
“Today… any person who does not rediscover himself or herself every fifth or sixth year by learning totally new concepts will become irrelevant. So the ‘learnability’ portion has to be much better (intense) than the earlier generations, and that is something people have to concentrate on… They can’t say that I have (already completed) my education,” he said.
Founded in 2016 by former Asian Paints executives – Sangeet Kumar, Prateek Jain, Satish Shukla and Bir Singh – Addverb has grown into one of India’s prominent robotics and warehouse automation solution companies, serving more than 350 customers across over 25 countries through subsidiaries in the US, Europe, Singapore and Australia.
The company’s revenue is split equally between India and the overseas market.
“Even when we started, we said India will be our market – and the whole purpose of the existence of the organisation is that we bring automation so Indian companies become more productive and efficient globally – but we also said the whole world will be our market, whatever we learn at this scale, we will take it to the world, and make difference there as well,” he said.
The company had a Rs 700 crore turnover last fiscal, began the current fiscal with an order book of around Rs 1,300 crore, and is bullish about the business outlook.
Addverb has its R&D set up in Noida (a site it calls ‘Bot Valley’) where some niche manufacturing of collaborative robots and quadrupeds – the robotic four-legged machines – also takes place.
The flagship manufacturing operations, Addverb’s ‘Bot Verse’ factory, is located in Greater Noida and Kumar says this is the world’s largest facility for mobile robots at a single location.
“We can produce 100,000 robots a year, which is huge. When we designed that facility, we said it should be able to support revenue of up to Rs 8,500 crore,” he said.
Addverb’s portfolio of warehouse solutions includes mobile robots, sorting robots, Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS), picking systems, among others.
The company is also making a strong push into next-generation robotics, including collaborative robots, quadrupeds and humanoids, and is planning to raise fresh capital to expand beyond warehouse and factory automation into advanced robotics – or as Kumar puts it, the “robots of the future”.
Towards this, the first bet the company made was collaborative robots, robots designed to share workspaces safely alongside humans. Next came ‘quadrupeds’ suited for industrial surveillance and defence applications, Kumar points out.
“Last year, we decided we would build humanoids, both wheeled and legged versions,” he said.
Kumar said the wheeled humanoid was launched at LogiMAT India in February this year (Elixis-W, the first Made-in-India wheeled humanoid robot, is for industrial use) while the legged version is undergoing training ahead of a planned launch.
The company, which initially derived almost 90-95% of its earnings from the retail and e-commerce sectors, has since significantly diversified its revenue mix.
Today, retail and e-commerce account for about 30% of revenue, with consumer goods and chemicals/petrochemicals contributing a similar share. Kumar says demand from new energy and electronics has emerged as one of the fastest-growing segments.
According to him, large investments in solar module manufacturing and battery factories are fuelling demand for industrial automation in India. Addverb is also seeing opportunities in the defence and industrial electronics space.
“We want to be one among the top five of the world’s largest robotics companies in the next 10 years… it cannot happen if we only serve the domestic market. It has to be a multinational (approach),” Kumar said.
Drawing from the biblical ‘David versus Goliath‘ analogy, Kumar describes Addverb as a nimble challenger taking on global automation giants.
Competing against robotics companies generating $4-5 billion in revenue, in markets where automation has been entrenched for nearly two decades, he believes India’s nascent robotics industry is now ready to make its mark.
“… We are still ‘David‘. Of course, we have grown; we are one of the fastest-growing companies in the robotic space today, not only in terms of revenue but also in terms of the number of robots, but 10 years is a very small journey in a company’s life. We are at a stage where we now know the potential and how much we can grow. So we are at the inflection point,” he said.