The Boulder, Colorado-based firm creates software that enables robots to make better judgments and perform jobs with greater intelligence.
When it comes to robots, the hardware is the easy part. PickNik creator and CEO Dave Coleman says, “There are a lot of companies that have been delivering decent robot arms for a couple of decades now.” Making them smarter is the true challenge.
Taking on this difficult subject has resulted in significant commercial potential. PickNik made $2.2 million in revenue in 2020, representing a 966 percent three-year growth rate and propelling the company to No. 505 on the Inc. 5000 list this year. According to Coleman, NASA, Google, Amazon, and robotics start-ups like Kindred and Plus One Robotics are among the company’s clients.
Coleman interned at Willow Garage, a robotics firm, in 2010. Many of the industry’s sharpest minds worked for the startup, and early employees went on to form companies like Savioke, which makes bots for the hotel sector, and Zipline, which makes drones that deliver blood and other medical supplies to remote places.
“Being surrounded by all these brilliant robotics was basically the start of my whole career,” Coleman adds.
During his time there, Coleman worked at Willow Garage on open-source software that powered robotic arms. He continued to build the platform after the firm went bankrupt in 2014, making money by coaching clients on how to use it with their robots. The demand for the programme was so high that he decided to start a company based on it the next year.
