Mytra unlocks a new paradigm in smart factories

Science fiction writers and visionaries have taught us to expect intelligent automation for quite some time, but the reality is that hardware is hard, as the oft-repeated saying goes. It’s only recently that startups and enterprises alike have made the pivot from unimaginative assembly-line machines to robots and smart equipment that can truly revolutionize the way physical work gets done. One of the examples of this future in practice is Mytra, a San Francisco–based startup founded in 2022. Mytra founder Chris Walti says, “Much of the world’s GDP is still driven by physical industries, with little to no impact from software. Robots are how we will apply software to the physical world.”¹

Mytra’s goal is to drastically simplify the task of moving material around the four walls of a factory or warehouse. According to Walti, 80% of the work in a warehouse involves simply moving matter from one point to another. Despite the availability of automated solutions, most warehouses globally still rely on manual processes. Walti, who spent several years automating production lines for electric cars, believes the potential for disruption is vast: “This is one of the biggest gaps in product-market fit that I can think of.”

Traditional automation solutions are often inflexible and expensive. By the time a supply chain enterprise, for instance, completes a 10-year investment in automation systems, it might have shifted to entirely different products that the new equipment cannot handle. Mytra's aim is to tackle this problem in a way that suits the dynamic, scalable needs of modern industries with a system that Walti describes as a “general-purpose computer for moving matter around in 3D space."

"It's a set of tools that companies can configure to do whatever they need for material flow today or into the future, without having to reinvest," Walti elaborates. Mytra's storage system consists of three main components: steel “cubes” that can be built into any shape or size, a cell tray that holds materials in place, and a robot that manipulates materials within the cube. In this highly modular system, a company can store warehouse materials in a grid-like structure that matches its building space. Employees can then utilize software to call for materials (maneuvered by the robot) when they need to be delivered, which reduces the need for humans to move around the warehouse as well as reduces the risk of worker injury.

Crucially, the modular system can move and manipulate a wide range of materials, from pencils to refrigerators. This unlocks automation for unclear future applications, not just what an enterprise is currently selling or keeping in stock. Walti emphasizes that for any industrial application, companies think, “I want to automate, I want to make things more efficient, and I want to make more efficient use of my labor. But what if I can't predict the future?”

Walti and his team have successfully deployed their system at a major grocery chain within two years, which was notably fast for the industry. He’s keen to rethink how industrial automation can be done, as opposed to just automating existing processes. Walti says, “Innovation is often tied to dramatic simplifications, as we saw with the smartphone, which condensed thousands of components into a handful. That’s how you break trade-offs.”

Looking forward, Walti believes that Mytra is only scratching the surface. “For relatively constrained problems, such as moving material in a grid or driving a vehicle in straight lines, the software and hardware have caught up to our ideas,” he says. Companies can thus unlock value by applying robotics in a clever way to these constrained problems. But the furthest star of progress in this field is general-purpose humanoid robotics, capable of handling tasks as diverse and open-ended as manufacturing, surgery, or sanitation work.

Walti, who previously led the humanoid robotics team for a major automotive manufacturer, says, “I view humanoid robotics as the ninth inning. Before we get there, there’s a series of other capabilities that investors and entrepreneurs are interested in building, if they can find a blueprint to success. Right now is a really interesting time to be in this space.”