One day on the floor at Hannover Messe. The fair is saturated with cobot vendors, Chinese hardware (some serious, most not), European integrators, and Unitree humanoids as booth props. The useful signal sits in three buckets: hardware leads we can actually buy from, software/partnership plays, and sales framing we can borrow. The rest is noise.
Hardware shortlist that came out of it: UR via Theo Drijfhout (6 wk), Rokae via Jäger-Engineering (8 wk, ~€150k, CE), and RobCo (~5% below UR, modular, collab-friendly). BÄR Automation can custom-build anything but the 4-month lead time is a killer.
Checked into the hotel without any human intervention. Self-service kiosk / app flow handled the whole loop: identity, key issuance, room assignment. No front-desk staff involved.
Room rate~$180 / night Pricey Round-trip travel~$200
Spoke with the Lentil Robotics team at their booth. Roughly the same space as us, but their focus is the beverage industry. Company is very young, they started about two weeks ago.
They also flagged R3 Robotics as another player in the space, focusing on battery disassembly. Worth following up on.
VerticalBeverage Founded~2 weeks ago EntityGmbH (Germany) Weblentilrobotics.com Also mentionedR3 Robotics · battery disassembly
Another university booth. Hierarchical control setup, nothing novel, academically standard stuff. What was more interesting than the research itself was the hardware choice.
They were running on a Universal Robots arm with a Robotiq parallel gripper. Worth flagging because this exact gripper showed up at booth after booth across the fair. Starting to look like the de-facto default end-effector in this ecosystem.
ResearchHierarchical control (standard) ArmUniversal Robots (UR) Gripper seen everywhere: Robotiq
Elite Robotics, a vendor we'd previously considered buying hardware from, had a stand at the fair. Swung by twice. Both times, nobody was manning the booth.
The stand itself also looked noticeably cheap next to the surrounding robotics booths, much smaller production value than neighbors. Reads as a weak signal on the company's current momentum, or at least their willingness to invest in presence at this level of show.
VendorElite Robotics Visits2× unmanned Soft red flag for procurement
Long chat with Erhan Kuş, Founder & GM of COBRO Robot Technologies (Turkish robotics integrator, Istanbul-based, in the Türkiye pavilion). Note: folder was labeled "corba" but the actual company is COBRO.
Their demo was the cleanest we saw all day: ABB arm with a Schmalz multi-cup vacuum gripper picking cardboard boxes. Motion was smooth, cycle looked production-ready, not a toy demo.
Product tip he dropped: ABB is releasing a new cobot today. Worth checking out ASAP, could reshape the cobot comparison for us.
Sales insight he shared: when pricing their solution, customers talk about price last, because the solution is genuinely needed. That's a strong signal about how to frame our own sales conversations: lead with the need and the outcome, let price be the last thing on the table.
Market read from him: the growth of automation is going slower than he expected. Worth triangulating against what we're seeing in our own pipeline.
CompanyCOBRO Robot Technologies ContactErhan Kuş, Founder & GM Emailerhan.kus@cobro.com.tr Webcobro.com.tr Demo stackABB arm + Schmalz vacuum gripper CTA: Check ABB's new cobot announced today
Spoke with Rainer Herbrik, Key Account Management / Vertriebsingenieur at BÄR Automation GmbH (Gemmingen, Germany, tagline "Sondermaschinen und Automationseinrichtungen", i.e. custom machines and automation systems). Note: folder was labeled "bar" but the actual company is BÄR, with the umlaut.
Strongest match so far for building hardware to our spec. They can actually build every robot configuration we've been asking around for, the full system the way we want it. And I'm fairly confident they've been acquired by Agile Robots, which would explain the range of arms on their booth.
The catch: nothing is in stock, and lead time is ~4 months. So the capability is there, but the delivery timeline would push any project meaningfully out.
CompanyBÄR Automation GmbH ContactRainer Herbrik (B.Eng.) Emailrainer.herbrik@baer-automation.de LocationGemmingen, DE Parent?Likely acquired by Agile Robots Lead time: ~4 months, nothing in stock
Talked to André Kühnert, Technical Expert – AI & Robotics at Wandelbots. This is a software play, not hardware. Could be genuinely interesting for us.
From how André described it, the stack is essentially what Atlas is to us, but leaning more heavily on the orchestration layer. Their demo made that obvious: one control plane driving a KUKA arm, a Techman arm, and a Gessmann mobile base, all on the same setup. Multi-vendor orchestration is clearly the pitch.
Channel opportunity: Wandelbots is already working with Gessmann. If we want a warm introduction / commercial hook into Gessmann, going in through Wandelbots is probably the fastest path.
CompanyWandelbots ContactAndré Kühnert RoleTechnical Expert – AI & Robotics ProductNOVA (multi-vendor orchestration) Hook: Wandelbots ↔ Gessmann partnership
Common Sense Robotics is building VLA (vision-language-action) models for manufacturing. Serious team: CEO brings 10 years in the aviation industry, CTO is Prof. Herman Bruyninckx, KU Leuven. Genuinely heavyweight.
Their go-to-market is sharp. They've identified that the aviation industry is sitting on a 10+ year backlog while simultaneously hitting a labor shortage. Their pitch is: use our VLA + robots to automate into that gap. Demand is structural, not a nice-to-have, which makes the sales conversation a lot easier.
Had a good chat with Herman, the CTO, at the booth. Key point: he does not want to own the integration layer. He is explicitly looking for partners like us, companies who actually talk to the end customer and can own delivery. That's a clean handshake between what they build and what we do.
Follow-up: simple message to Herman, say it was great to meet him and that it's good to find more serious people working in this space. No pitch yet, just keep the channel open.
CompanyCommon Sense Robotics ProductVLA models for manufacturing CEO10 yrs aviation industry CTOProf. Herman Bruyninckx, KU Leuven Target marketAviation, 10yr backlog + labor gap CTA: Message Herman to keep channel open
Walked past a stand showing a micro-assembly line powered by robotic arms. Brand on the cell was Micro-i.
This is worth flagging as a sales angle to pursue. The value add here is not abstract, these robots are visibly doing work that would otherwise need a skilled operator at a bench, at scale, and repeatably. Exactly the kind of application where the ROI conversation writes itself and where "we need this" lands before "what does it cost" even comes up (tying back to Erhan's insight from Event 05).
BrandMicro-i ApplicationMicro-assembly line CTA: Explore micro-assembly as a sales angle
Walked past another really well-executed manufacturing line demo. Cell ran smoothly, nice cycle, clearly putting real engineering behind the show. Didn't grab the vendor name at the booth (no card, no clear branding captured), so this is logged as a visual reference for now, track down the company later from the video if we want to follow up.
VendorUnknown (ID from video) Reason loggedQuality of execution
Wuhu Moka Robot Technology Co., Ltd., a Chinese industrial robot vendor (Hall 26, B16, mokarobot.com). Full catalog on display, everything from small cobots through to large industrial arms and a humanoid in the lineup.
Conversation did not inspire confidence. Fits exactly the pattern flagged in the general remarks: pure Chinese vendor with a broad catalog and claims that don't hold up under scrutiny. Recommendation: avoid.
CompanyWuhu Moka Robot Technology Co., Ltd. BoothHall 26, B16 Webmokarobot.com Do not engage
Spoke with Jonathan Jäger, Head of Sales at Jäger-Engineering GmbH (Königsfeld, DE). Jäger-Engineering appears to be the German partner / distributor channel for Rokae arms. Rokae is a Chinese robotics company, but the variant Jonathan is selling is a German-paired arm that ships with full CE certification, which materially changes how we'd think about procurement vs. the pure-Chinese vendors.
Crucially, they have what we need. Concrete numbers from the conversation:
Lead time8 weeks Price~€150k CEYes (German variant)
Useful industry context he shared: for CE marking, the body doing the certification for a lot of the robotics players here is TÜV SÜD. Worth noting for our own certification path, if we end up needing CE we now know where the pipeline goes.
Company (OEM)Rokae German partnerJäger-Engineering GmbH ContactJonathan Jäger (M.Sc., Head of Sales) Emailj.jaeger@jaeger-engineering.de CE body mentionedTÜV SÜD CTA: Set up a follow-up meeting
Guangdong Huayan Robotics Co., Ltd. (HK-listed, stock code 1021.HK), showing their Agilebot arm line on the booth. Spoke to Miao Ke, Global Market VP.
Did not come across as trustworthy. Same pattern as the other pure-Chinese vendors: broad claims, thin substance, hard to get concrete answers. Recommendation: avoid.
CompanyGuangdong Huayan Robotics Co., Ltd. Ticker1021.HK Product lineAgilebot Contact (for the record)Miao Ke, Global Market VP Do not engage
Had a solid conversation at the RobCo booth (Munich, rob.co). Pitched as a direct UR challenger: ~5% cheaper than UR, with a modular arm design. The arm itself looks nice in the flesh.
Reliability claims were the most interesting part. They quote 45,000 hours MTBF on their arm, and took a direct shot at UR by claiming UR's advertised 35,000 hours MTBF is more realistically closer to 22,000 in the field. Worth pressure-testing that number independently before quoting it anywhere, but it's a sharp competitive narrative if it holds up.
Spoke with Arjan van Staveren, CRO (Dutch, easy to talk to) and picked up Marc Krause, Partner Development Manager's card too. They're actively interested in collaborating.
CompanyRobCo Pricing~5% below UR DesignModular MTBF (claim)45,000 h UR MTBF (their claim)~22,000 h in reality CROArjan van Staveren · arjan.van.staveren@robco.de PartnershipsMarc Krause · marc.krause@robco.de CTA: Meeting with Marc on partnership
Spoke with Eris Dhionis Sako, co-founder & CEO of Duatic AG (Swiss, duatic.com). ETH Zurich background, he's the one behind their novel actuator design. Genuinely cool tech, visibly different from the cobot crowd.
He was open to collaboration, but, reading between the lines, they aren't really in "sell the thing" mode yet. The booth presence felt much more like a hiring funnel than a commercial one, i.e., they were there to meet engineers, not customers. Something to keep in mind when deciding how hard to push a commercial conversation.
Follow-up: send Eris a message, keep it warm, don't push procurement, position it as peers in the space.
CompanyDuatic AG (CH) ContactEris Dhionis Sako, co-founder & CEO BackgroundETH Zurich, actuator design Booth intentHiring > selling Emailesako@duatic.com CTA: Send message to Eris
Finally got face-time with someone from Teradyne (Universal Robots' parent). They didn't handle regional sales themselves, but pointed me at Theo Drijfhout, a UR reseller, as the right person to actually move on a deal.
Made contact with Theo, conversation went well. Concretely: 6-week lead time on UR hardware through him. This is the shortest lead time on the table so far for a CE-ready arm, worth weighing seriously against the Rokae / RobCo paths.
OEMUniversal Robots (Teradyne) ChannelTheo Drijfhout (reseller) Lead time6 weeks StatusContact made, looking good Benchmark against Rokae (8wk) and RobCo
Footage that didn't belong to a specific conversation but is worth looking at.
