Formic’s Saman Farid on reinvigorating manufacturing with robotization - Labor shortages, China, Robots as a Service, Incubating businesses, Building a $100B company

Our guest today is Saman Farid, the CEO and founder of Formic. Formic is accelerating the adoption of automation across small to mid-sized U.S. manufacturers and boosting productivity by removing the risk, complexity, upfront capital, and expertise that typically exist as barriers to onboarding this technology.

The company’s “Robotics-as-a-Service” model delivers customized robots at a low hourly rate, with guaranteed uptime. With a full-service offering that includes everything from planning and deployment to maintenance and upgrades, Formic is creating an innovative and accessible competitive advantage for small and mid-sized factories to ensure they stay relevant and thrive in any economy.

0:00 - Manufacturing in the US

4:15 - Why labor shortages

7:52 - Robotization in the US, China, and Korea

13:47 - Opportunity for the US manufacturing automation

19:08 - Formic’s hardware, software, and financing services

24:44 - Types of customers served by Formic

30:55 - Collaborative robots

33:15 - Case study: auto parts manufacturer

39:15 - Learnings from 10 years as a VC

46:56 - How to incubate a business

54:44 - People at Formic

1:02:12 - Future of robotization in manufacturing

TRIZ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIZ

Company: https://formic.co/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/goformic

Open positions: https://formic.co/careers

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