Chevron Technology Ventures and Asahi Kasei have invested in KEWAZO, the German-American robotics company behind LIFTBOT. With the new funding round, KEWAZO’s total funding has reached $35 million. The company said it will use the capital to expand deployment capacity, add new workflows and deepen integration at existing customer sites.
KEWAZO focuses on heavy industry, particularly maintenance, turnarounds and capital projects at refineries, petrochemical plants, chemical complexes and power facilities. According to the company, LIFTBOT is already deployed at more than 20 industrial sites across North America and Europe. The robot is designed to take over vertical material movement that would otherwise rely on cranes or manual handling.
Chevron’s involvement stands out because this is not just a financial investment. KEWAZO also points to a field case with Chevron in which three LIFTBOT systems were used during a pre-turnaround for scaffolding, dismantling and mechanical work. According to that case study, the deployment generated $988,000 in savings over three months through reduced labor and crane costs, including operator, rigger and fuel expenses.
The same case study shows that LIFTBOT fully replaced crane use in two parts of the project. For two flare projects, labor hours were reduced from 5,250 to 1,950, while for furnace and column work they fell from 4,160 to 3,000. KEWAZO also states that the system reduces manual lifting and can cut crane use by up to 50 percent, which is significant on busy maintenance sites where safety and scheduling are critical.
The broader significance is that KEWAZO is scaling a type of robotics that is less visible than humanoids or warehouse systems, but closely tied to a specific industrial need: moving materials during maintenance work. Chevron’s decision to invest through its venture arm suggests that robotics for maintenance and turnaround operations is increasingly being treated as operational technology rather than a pilot project.
KEWAZO also says that LIFTBOT deployments generate structured data from difficult industrial environments. According to the company, that operational data forms the basis of a broader Physical AI platform aimed at increasing transparency today and enabling more automation over time. That positions KEWAZO not only as the maker of a lifting robot, but as a robotics and AI supplier for heavy industry.
