By Lucia Maffei
Locus Robotics broke ground over a year ago at its Wilmington headquarters.
After moving into the 157,000-square-foot building over the summer, the 9-year-old company — a manufacturer of robots for fulfillment warehouses for customers such as DHL and UPS — is planning to add members to its local team of 200 and growing its $150 million annual recurring revenue.
Locus Robotics’ battery-operated robotics fleet, known collectively as “LocusBots,” work alongside humans on the floors of fulfillment centers to assemble packages for by e-commerce orders.
The robots don’t have arms and cannot pick items from shelves, so humans are still part of the picture. However, LocusBots can significantly cut down the number of steps a human “picker” must take during her shift.
When Locus took in $117 million in a late-stage round of funding two years ago, Faulk told the Business Journal that his goal was to have an initial public offering in 18 to 24 months, or late 2024.
But at a ribbon-cutting event on Wednesday, CEO Rick Faulk told the Business Journal that the IPO will have to wait.
“We’d like to be a little bigger on the revenue side,” he said. He said he now expects the company to hit the public markets in another 12 to 24 months, adding that both the revenue size and the state of the market have to “align.”
Meanwhile, Locus Robotics doesn’t plan to take additional venture-capital money, and will fund its business with cash on its balance sheet, he said.
Hiring remains on the agenda for Locus, which now employs over 470 folks worldwide and about 200 in its new headquarters. The new Wilmington headquarters, which was design-built by landlord Carlyle Capital Inc., can fit up to 400 people and could potentially be expanded next door, Faulk said.
“There were a lot of just straight warehouses out there, but we needed office space as well,” he added. “We had to build for the future, and this building allows us to do that.”