Formic’s risk-free, affordable, full-service pay-by-the-hour rental model removes traditional barriers to automation, helping small and mid-sized manufacturers

CHICAGO―August, 2022, Formic, accelerating the adoption of automation across American manufacturing, has seen sustained 70% QoQ growth in both customer count and ARR since announcing $26.5 million in Series A funding in January and today announced a slate of new hires that reflect its commitment to maintaining and innovating their fleet of rental robots and continuing to expand their customer base.

Small to mid-sized US manufacturers face a host of challenges today, including soaring inflation, wage increases, and a severe labor shortage. Automation is essential for them to compete and thrive, but has until now been inaccessible due to lack of expertise, high upfront costs, complex integration, and risk involved. Formic has changed the paradigm with an innovative Robots-as-a-Service solution that delivers full-functioning, customized robotic systems from leading robotic vendors, providing efficient on-demand automation for factories across the US from $8 / hour, with guaranteed uptime. Formic has helped 75% of its customers overcome the traditional barriers of automation by customizing, deploying, and maintaining their first robots, and 25% of those customers are already in contract for multiple systems.

Amid a tech downturn, Formic has seen 35% QoQ growth in employee headcount this year, recently promoted Jack Wagler from Treasurer & VP Finance to Chief Financial Officer, and now brings Amazon alum Karl Barry, startup veteran Mika Saryan, and sales expert Michael Lim to the team.

Karl Barry joins Formic as Head of Robotics Monitoring and Maintenance, bringing 36 years of operational and maintenance leadership to the role from a diverse range of environments. With a track record for developing programs that deliver outstanding customer service, Karl's prior appointments include Maintenance Manager at Amazon's fulfillment center in Texas, where he led a team of 90. He also served as Maintenance and Reliability Director at Kaspar Companies, Area Business Manager and Senior Site Manager for Georgia-Pacific business group Advanced Technology Services, and CEO / founder of contract maintenance company International Machinery Services.

A startup veteran with broad technical expertise in IoT and Robotics and knowledge of software development for Robotics, IoT, Consumer Electronics, and Cloud products, Mika Saryan joins Formic as Head of Fleet Management Products. In his most recent role, Mika led software development for last-mile delivery robots at Coco and prior to that, he was in charge of development of SNOO, an award-winning, revolutionary smart bassinet. Over his career, Mika has built and managed several software teams locally, remote, and offshore and is well-versed in software development best practices and methodologies, complex system architectures, data pipelines, security, and other areas.

Formerly at cybersecurity company BeyondTrust, Michael Lim joins Formic as Sales Development Manager. With over 10 years' experience in sales, Michael's expertise encompasses creating and implementing sales processes and hiring, training, and motivating teams across a range of industries in both b2b and b2c roles.

"I'm thrilled with our new appointments, who will help propel us forward during our next phase of growth," said Saman Farid, Formic co-founder and CEO. "Today, most U.S. factories are sitting idle up to 75% of the time, because there's a major shortage of labor available. Our customers knew they needed automation and have been trying to automate for the last 10 years, but kept hitting barriers. We've empowered these manufacturers by providing them a very easy, very pain-free, very low cost, very low-risk way to deploy robot systems, and our offerings will only improve as our fleet of rental robots grows."

About Formic
Founded in 2020, Formic is accelerating the adoption of automation across small to mid-sized U.S. manufacturers and boosting productivity by removing the risk, complexity, upfront capital, and expertise that typically exist as barriers to onboarding this technology. The company's "Robotics-as-a-Service" model delivers customized robots at a low hourly rate, with guaranteed uptime. With a full service offering that includes everything from planning and deployment to maintenance and upgrades, Formic is creating an innovative and accessible competitive advantage for small and mid-sized factories to ensure they stay relevant and thrive in any economy. Go to formic.co for more info.