ULMA buys 30% of robotics firm Automach after 11-year partnership
What's the deal? ULMA Handling SystemsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has acquired a 30% stake in AutomachDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → Ingeniería, a Vitoria-based industrial automation and robotics firm that generates around €5 million in annual revenue. The deal gives the Oñati cooperative group a board seat, though not control. Terms were undisclosed.
What each side brings: Automach, founded in 2007 by three former colleagues, designs special machinery and robotic cells, working with collaborative and anthropomorphic robotics, machine vision, and control systems. ULMADealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → Handling Systems integrates automated intralogistics for warehouses and processes.
Why now? The two have worked together since 2015, so the investment caps 11 years of collaboration. ULMA wants to add more robotics, machine vision, and artificial intelligence to its installations — and now has those capabilities inside a company it part-owns rather than relying on outside suppliers.
What's the endgame? Both plan to develop more flexible, autonomous robots and apply perception and AI to logistics processes. Automach also brings a research arm, taking part in projects such as Aerobotics and Haizebot, the latter backed by Basque government and European Feder funds.
The size gap: Automach employs around 30 people. The ULMA group tops 6,000 workers, runs some 70 international subsidiaries, and reports roughly €1.3 billion in revenue across nine industrial businesses.
The signal: ULMA's move reflects how logistics integrators are absorbing robotics and AI talent to automate deeper. For small engineering firms like Automach, a minority sale offers a path to bigger projects while keeping, as founder Jon Fernández de Retana put it, the agility of a 30-person shop.
Read more: gananzia.com
Image credit: smjbk
