Last year, Vecna Robotics named mobile robotics and artificial intelligence veteran Karl Iagnemma as its CEO. The former CEO of autonomous vehicle developers nuTonomy and Motional joined Vecna shortly after the company released its CaseFlow system for human-robot case picking.
“Looking back at Year 1, it was a very good year,” Iagnemma told Automated Warehouse. “We’ve doubled revenue while maintaining a strong margin profile. CaseFlow has been a major focus for us this year. It’s the first true solution for flexible case picking.”
MIT scientists founded Vecna Technologies in 1998, and Vecna Robotics spun out in 2018. The Waltham, Mass.-based company provides autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), autonomous forklifts, and pallet jacks, as well as the Pivotal orchestration software suite.
CaseFlow delivers fast ROI
“We estimate that about $50 billion is spent annually on case picking in North America,” said Iagnemma. “Customer interest has been off the charts. They’re basically saying, ‘You have finally brought us a solution to this massive problem that we have.”
Vecna officially launched the product around ProMat this year, and it has already has deployments “at a number of marquee customers,” Iagnemma said. “We’re already seeing our customers showcasing CaseFlow to their partners and customers in innovation centers and at deployment sites.”
He cited the example of Geodis, which increased its rate from about 125 to 250 units picked per hour (UPH). Not only has the system helped double productivity and a rapid return on investment (ROI), but it has also enabled Vecna customers to save money on recruiting and training, noted Iagnemma.
“We’ve already signed an expansion deal with one of our customers,” he added.
Vecna Robotics focuses on discipline
Iagnemma said that Vecna Robotics has built on the work of its technical team over the past several years, and it has needed relatively few organizational changes.
“We brought in Rich Bohne, who was formerly at Fetch and then at Agility Robotics,” said Iagnemma. “He is now our chief commercial officer and has brought in a few key team members. I think their performance is really reflected in our strong revenue growth.”
“Beyond that, Vecna has always had a great culture — it’s the first thing I noticed when I stepped in the door,” he added. “It’s a great mix of folks who have been here quite a long time and individuals with experience at other businesses in the robotics industry, which is the combination you want to have.”
Iagnemma added that Vecna has tried to “remain disciplined,” shrinking its headcount in a few areas to grow revenue.
“We’re not trying to build an empire here; we’re trying to build a small fortress that’s highly profitable,” he said. “It’s about being careful what we task our team against our product-development roadmap, which is very carefully considered. We’re looking beyond what the customers are asking for today to that the customers of the future will want.”
Vecna has invested in engineering while avoiding side projects and making sure that its existing staff has the right tooling to be more productive than ever, Iagnemma asserted.
Iagnemma is bullish on Vecna, automation
While AMR vendors and supply chains have faced economic headwinds, Iagnemma said he expects growth to continue.
“From our perspective, it’s all tailwinds,” he said. “For our customers in manufacturing, there is no reshoring without automation. For customers in warehousing, we hear about the labor shortage every day.”
Uncertainty around tariffs and other factors should further encourage companies to invest in robotics, said Iagnemma.
Source: Vecna Robotics
“Customers are very focused on two things: ROI and reliability,” he explained. “Both play to Vecna’s strengths. One of the dirty secrets of robotics is that it’s actually not that hard to make a system these days that works 95% of the time. But that’s not worth a lot to our customers.”
“That last 5% of performance takes 95% of the time and effort,” Iagnemma added. “So we’ve spent the past several years doing the hard work to achieve that level of reliability.”
“Customers are viewing automation as a hedge against uncertainty, whether it’s tariff impact, labor availability, or rising costs,” he said. “And it’s an even bigger hedge when you’re hedging against changes at the site level and beyond. Customers are also drawn to our RaaS [robotics-as-a-service] model, because being able to pay by the drink instead of making a large upfront investment allows you to manage your cash better.”
Pivotal Command Center matures
Improvements in software and AI are also helping Vecna Robotics, said Iagnemma.
“Another dirty secret of robotics is that it’s not hard to do proofs of concept or one-offs,” he noted. “The real challenge is in scaling and expanding with customers, having tackled their hardest challenges.”
“All of our customers today are on multi-year contracts. They want reliability and productivity enhancement,” said Iagnemma. “We’ve gotten quite mature with our ability to support them with 24/7 support for all our robots through our Pivotal Command Center. We integrate with any WMS provider and have a deep understanding of interoperability with technology from other providers.”
Thanks to high satisfaction levels, Vecna has seen opportunities to sell new or different products, such as CaseFlow, to existing customers.
What is Vecna working on for 2026? Iagnemma said a number of initiatives and partnerships are under way. Improvements in sensors and compute will help the company keep hardware costs down, he said.
“On the software side, most people think AI is about improving robot performance, but to me, it’s mostly on the back end, where it can make us more efficient in deploying, supporting, and scaling robots,” added Iagnemma. “AI is an enabler for increasing our reach and operating more efficiently without significantly growing our team. More flexible technology is inevitable.”
He acknowledged that the AMR market will likely have more consolidation.
“There are many players, and customers have a desire to transact with fewer,” Iagnemma said. “Warehouse automation will follow a pattern you see in many tech revolutions — it starts slowly, and then it happens all at once, as everyone is motivated by competition.”
“I’m optimistic that 2026 will be a year of growth,” he concluded. “The industries we work in are inherently conservative, but they’re attracted to ROI if they don’t have to sacrifice reliability and productivity.”