MUSE raises $11M to scale its retail robot from Japan to the US
What's the deal? MUSEDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Tokyo startup that builds the multi-use store robot Armo, has raised US$13.5M (roughly $11 million) from 15 operating companies, venture capital firms, and financial institutions. ALPHA Co.Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → led the round as a new lead investor.
Who's backing it? New investors included Rakuten CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Gogin CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and New Commerce VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. Existing backers Incubate FundDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, XTech VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Spiral CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Toshiba TecDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Canal VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and YMFG CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → added to their stakes.
What's Armo? The robot works alongside staff in supermarkets, home improvement stores, and drugstores, handling tasks that people once did alone. These include restocking shelves, moving products in-store for online grocery orders, tracking stock levels, promotion, and guiding shoppers.
Unlike single-task machines, Armo switches jobs depending on the time of day and store needs — a design MUSE says lifts utilisation and improves cost-effectiveness. It also feeds shelf and sales-floor data into the Eureka Platform, a cloud tool for flagging stockouts and analysing displays.
What's the money for? MUSE will build a full-scale mass production system with external manufacturing partners, sharpen its AI and software, and push into the US market. Expansion will centre on local subsidiary MUSE US Inc.
Why now? Armo has moved past pilots: it is used by major Japanese retailers and has started operating in a physical store in the US, Foodcellar Market in Long Island City, New York. "This fundraising is an important turning point as MUSE steps into a full-scale growth phase," said chief executive Yasutaka Kasagi (translated from Japanese).
The signal: The raise is less a bet on a lab-stage robot than financing for scale, as interest in physical AI grows globally. It lands amid a broader push to automate retail work: KDDIDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → plans to invest US$230.8M and deploy more than 1,000 robots across retail, logistics, and manufacturing by 2030. The test for MUSE is whether it can deliver reliable operations and clear returns as it moves to mass production and expands in the US.
Read more: prtimes.jp
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
