Artimus Robotics secures $3.5M in grants, contracts
Artimus Robotics Inc., a technology-transfer spinoff from research at the University of Colorado Boulder, has secured more than $3.5 million in grants and contracts that company officials say will allow it to expand its scope as well as its facility and workforce.
Tim Morrissey, Artimus CEO, told Bizwest on Wednesday that the money will enable the young company to double its workforce from six to 12 and double its space from 2,400 square feet to 5,000 square feet by taking over a unit next door in the building at 2985 Sterling Court. The added space previously had been occupied by Colorado Processing, which moved to the Denver area.
Construction already is underway, he said, and should be completed within six weeks. The new space will house a clean-room facility, a higher-end lab space and a mix of manufacturing and research areas, Morrissey said.
“Now, Artimus needs more passionate and talented people as well as expanded cutting-edge facilities to optimize and validate the technology” for its customers, Morrissey said. “I am extremely optimistic about the future of Artimus and look forward to fully harnessing the potential of our team and technology.
“We’re very excited. We’re very fortunate,” he said. “We have over a 24-month runway right now, which in today’s macroeconomics is a gift for a young company. So we feel honored to have the opportunity, and we feel hopeful that within 24 months, we’ll be a much different company.”
Most importantly, Morrissey said, the funding will vault Artimus from research to application-based development.
Artimus builds actuator components for industries such as defense, automotive, medical devices and automation. Its proprietary HASEL technology — the acronym refers to hydraulically amplified self-healing electrostatic actuators — “already has shown incredible potential in many applications,” he said, “and now this capital will facilitate optimization of the technology for the best applications.”
Basically, he explained, the actuators convert electricity into motion “anywhere a person is interacting with a robot.” HASEL technology operates when electrostatic forces are applied to a flexible polymer pouch and dielectric liquid to drive shape change in a soft structure.
“The same way the muscles in your own body help you move around, we help robots and differing automation needs move,” Morrissey said.
Sources of the funding include both private and public origins, such as direct contracts from the U.S. Navy, government contracts and grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, the U.S. Army, the Department of Energy and multiple commercial contracts from large corporations.
Eleven federal agencies offer Small Business Innovation Research grants, and five of them also participate in STTR, the Small Business Technology Transfer program.
Morrissey said most of the grants are SBIR, but one STTR grant came from the Army in partnership with research from Professor Sean Humbert in CU’S Mechanical Engineering Department. That grant will fund development of next-generation, highly controllable robotic actuators, Morrissey said, “making them smarter, making them more precise.”
Both SBIR and STTR awards go directly to a company, but under STTR a company must subcontract to a research university. Under SBIR, the principal investigator has to be at least 51% employed at the company.