I’m Mostafa ElSayed, and I co-founded and serve as CEO of Automata. In 2015, a startup company called Automata was established in London to specialize in laboratory automation. We strive to move laboratories in the direction of an open, integrated automation model so they can access the full potential of automation, which many laboratories lack at the moment.
Today, partial automation is pervasive and can be seen if you enter a lab. You will see a lot of these tools that automate a step in a scientist’s workflow at the trade show today.
There is a huge market demand for automation that connects this partial automation to automate the entire workflow of that scientist.
The idea for Automata originated from the observation that automation was not gaining traction in a number of markets. We have witnessed how automation has changed the world of automotive manufacturing. We firmly believe that this technology has the power to alter how people conduct business.
Having been in the market for five years and selling hundreds of our robots, we became aware that although customers were beginning to use robots more frequently, they were not embracing the technology at a rate that would enable them to completely transform their businesses.
We determined two years ago that a change in the management process is necessary for a company to truly adopt automation at scale. Automata cannot participate in just a portion of that journey. In order to provide value to our customers as soon as possible, we must own that journey. This is how science views time. In order to support our customers on their journey, we have changed the way we do business and the types of products we make.