Unbox Robotics Raises $28M for Warehouse Automation

Indian firm Unbox Robotics has raised $28 million in funding for its plans in warehouse automation.

The round includes a mix of primary and secondary capital and was led by ICICI Ventures and Info Edge’s Redstart Labs, with participation from US-based F-Prime, 3one4 Capital, Navam Capital, Force Ventures, and other existing investors.

This signals a maturing phase for the Pune-based startup, where long-term team retention and reward structures are increasingly becoming part of late-stage deal-making, particularly in capital-intensive deeptech ventures.

International ambitions

Unbox Robotics said it will deploy the newly raised capital to expand its presence across India and in select international markets. Alongside geographic growth, the startup plans to strengthen its leadership and engineering teams and invest in developing new products.

The move highlights a broader shift among Indian deeptech startups: beyond building a working product, companies are now racing to scale operational capability and customer deployments. In robotics, where enterprise sales cycles are long and implementation demands are high, the ability to expand support, engineering depth, and delivery speed can be just as critical as the underlying technology.

For Unbox Robotics, the emphasis on leadership hiring and engineering expansion suggests the company is preparing for more complex deployments, larger customer contracts, and potentially increased product diversification as demand rises for end-to-end warehouse automation.

Builds and battleground

Founded in 2019 by Pramod Ghadge, Unbox Robotics builds modular robotics systems designed to automate warehouse and fulfillment operations for large enterprises, particularly in ecommerce, retail, and third-party logistics. The company says it has clients across the US and Europe and a significant presence in India.

Its client roster includes Myntra, DTDC, Miroglio Group, and Inditex, pointing to a customer base that spans both Indian logistics networks and international retail supply chains. This mix is important because automation requirements vary widely between fast-moving ecommerce distribution centres and global retail supply chains that often prioritize accuracy, speed, and flexibility across seasonal peaks.

Unbox Robotics’ flagship product UnboxSort is a robotics sortation solution that targets supply chain automation. The system uses a fleet of AI-driven robots to sort parcels across fulfillment centres, sort hubs, distribution centres, and delivery networks. It also integrates automation solutions for peripheral systems such as binning, measurement, charging, and safety, aiming to reduce human intervention across the workflow.

The focus on sortation is significant because it is one of the most labour-intensive and error-prone parts of logistics operations. Automation in this area can improve speed and throughput, reduce bottlenecks during peak demand periods, and lower dependency on manual handling. For enterprises dealing with rising delivery expectations and tighter turnaround times, robotics-driven sortation can become a direct competitive advantage.

Competitive landscape and the race to automate logistics

Unbox Robotics enters a growing field of Indian startups working on robotics and automation, competing with the likes of CynLr, Sastra Robotics, and Flux Auto. The competitive pressure reflects a larger trend: as warehousing and fulfillment scale up across India, technology is becoming central to keeping costs under control while meeting increasingly demanding service-level agreements.

In practice, this is driving adoption not just in ecommerce-led warehouses but also in traditional retail and third-party logistics, where customers now expect the same delivery speeds and tracking transparency that ecommerce platforms popularized. Robotics startups that can prove reliability, fast deployment, and measurable cost savings are best positioned to win long-term enterprise contracts.

Unbox Robotics’ ability to claim international clients may help differentiate it from domestic peers, since global deployments often require stronger compliance standards, higher uptime expectations, and robust systems integration.

Growth and profitability claims

The startup has previously raised over $15 million across multiple rounds. It now claims to have grown revenue 5X year-on-year and achieved profitability, though it has not yet filed financials for the previous fiscal year.

These claims are likely to be closely watched by investors, as the broader venture market has shifted toward demanding stronger unit economics and clearer paths to sustainable growth. In deeptech, where hardware deployment costs can be high and scaling requires significant operational investment, profitability carries additional weight. If Unbox Robotics can sustain profitability while expanding into new markets, it may strengthen its positioning in an environment where late-stage capital is increasingly selective.

At the same time, expansion plans could test margins, since entering new geographies often requires localized service teams, partnerships, and longer onboarding cycles for enterprise customers.

Chinese robotics company UBTech is taking one of its biggest steps yet toward globalising humanoid robots.

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