Denmark

Robotics startups can struggle to get the help needed to turn great ideas into successful businesses. That’s why leading investors and companies from Denmark’s robotics industry and prominent commercial foundations have joined forces to establish a fund that will provide robotics and drone startups with the support they need – for generations to come.  

Universal Robots, the largest company in a fast-growing Danish robotics hub, has become the cluster’s first organization to reach 1,000 employees – one of only a few Danish companies founded in this millennium to hit this milestone.

The unique ecosystem of Danish robotics, centered around Odense on the island of Funen, is taking off, building on years of early successes that has caught the attention of international investors. Since 2015, the combined enterprise value of Danish robotics startups is up 3.7 times, reaching 1.1 billion euros in early 2022.

Rocking Robots recently travelled to the Danish city of Odense to visit several institutions and companies that are part of the very successful Robotics Cluster. This photo series gives an impression of the diversity of this robot-ecosystem.

In a few weeks, construction will begin on state-of-the-art joint headquarters for Universal Robots and Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR) in Odense, Denmark. The building will accommodate up to 600 employees and will be the world’s largest cobot and autonomous mobile robot (AMR) Hub. Groundbreaking will take place on 20 April with completion expected at the start of 2024.

‘We want our children to speak digital, says Odense Mayor Peter Rahbæk Juel.  This week Rocking Robots reports from the robotics capital of Europe, the Danish town of Odense.

“Denmark continues to rank amongst the world’s leading robot nations, delivering a strong 12% growth last year and even higher rates in segments such as collaborative and mobile robots. Global labour shortages at end users are fuelling demand for automated solutions and extending deployment of Danish robotic and drone technologies to new sectors such as logistics, retail, construction, healthcare and energy,” says Mikkel Christoffersen, CEO, Odense Robotics.

Teradyne today announced that Kim Povlsen has been appointed President of Universal Robots. Povlsen, a Danish native, brings global executive leadership from a high-tech and commercial perspective and will lead Universal Robots’ next stage of growth and innovation. His appointment reinforces Teradyne´s commitment to Universal Robots’ Danish origin and its role in further developing the local robotics community. Kim begins his new role at Universal Robots on March 1, 2021.