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Pickle Robot Company announced that it closed a $26 million Series A funding round and it has live pilot implementations unloading tens of thousands of packages a month at customer sites in the greater LA area. Pickle Robot creates artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled robotic automation systems that can unload trucks. 

The company plans to use the latest round of funding to accelerate go-to-market activities and strengthen deployment capabilities. To further accelerate the commercialization of the company’s offerings, Pickle Robots has expanded its leadership team. Mike Donikian is joining the team as vice president of product and product operations, and Pete Blair will be the company’s vice president of marketing and sales. 

“Customer interest in Pickle unload systems has been incredibly strong, and now that we have our initial unload systems out of the lab and into customer operations, we have a clear path to broad commercialization,” AJ Meyer, founder and CEO of Pickle Robot Company, said. “The early customer deployments, financing, and leadership additions set the stage for us to accelerate customer acquisition and build the company infrastructure we need to deliver more systems to more customers in the coming months.”

Ranpak, JS Capital, Schusterman Family Investments, Catapult Ventures and Soros Capital led the funding round. The round also included participation from Pickle Robot’s previous investors, Toyota AI Ventures, Third Kind Venture Capital, Hyperplane Ventures, BoxGroup and Version One Ventures. As part of the investment deal, Omar Asali, chairman and CEO of Ranpak, is joining Pickle Robot’s Board of Directors. 

United Exchange Corporation (UEC), an early customer of the Pickle Robot Unload System, deployed the system at its Southern California distribution center. There, Pickle Robot’s system processes floor-loaded ocean freight containers alongside UEC staff unloading other trailers at the facility. UEC produces, sources and distributes private-label and licensed consumer goods and food items. 

“Pickle robots really do unload trucks, or in our case ocean freight containers,” Tom Blaylock, Director of Operations at UEC, said. “Pickle has been a great partner to work with. We’ve seen their technology improve month-over-month handling our varied product types and package sizes, plus their team works closely with our staff on-site to make sure the daily work gets done on time to quality standards.”