A Barcelona startup just pulled off what it’s calling Europe’s largest robotics Series A. Theker, an AI robotics company building reconfigurable factory robots, raised $85 million, according to TechCrunch AI. The round was led by American VC firm CRV, with Samsung and Bernard Arnault’s Aglaé Ventures (the investment vehicle tied to the LVMH chairman) among the backers.
What stands out here is the bet itself. Most factory robots are built for one job. Theker is going the other way.
What Theker actually builds
Think of the difference this way. A single-task robot is great if the work never changes. “If you always have to put the same cookie in the same box, that works perfectly, but most processes aren’t like that,” co-founder Carla Gómez Cano told TechCrunch AI. Real factories and warehouses are messier than that.
Theker’s answer is a robot you can reconfigure. Its hands, arms, and overall form can be swapped out or resized depending on the task:
- Sorting packages
- Packing clothing
- Handling bottles and cans in a warehouse
That’s a sharp contrast to humanoids built around a fixed form, like the machines from Boston Dynamics. Theker isn’t chasing a human shape. It’s chasing flexibility.
Why this raise matters
The numbers tell the story. Theker targeted $30 to $40 million and raised more than double that, less than a year after a record seed round. TechCrunch AI reports it couldn’t find a larger European robotics Series A on record, and neither could the company.
This is significant because it signals where serious robotics money is moving. Manufacturers are facing labor shortages and they’re not waiting for perfect humanoids to arrive. They want automation now, without the usual tradeoff of locking into a machine that only does one thing. A generalist robot that adapts to the line, rather than forcing the line to adapt to it, is a direct answer to that demand.
The backer list reinforces the point. Inditex, Zara’s parent company, signed on early. That tells you where Theker starts: retail logistics. But Gómez Cano made clear that’s the floor, not the ceiling. The bigger goal is heavier industrial work, where the complexity and scale of manual tasks runs much higher.
The Samsung angle
One detail worth watching. Gómez Cano said Samsung isn’t a client yet, but the two are in advanced discussions. Theker would happily take the Korean giant as a customer, supplier, and investor at the same time. Land that trifecta and the startup gets revenue plus instant credibility in manufacturing at scale, which is exactly the market it wants to crack.
There’s also a notable operating philosophy here. Gómez Cano said she and co-founder Jiaqiang Ye Zhu “didn’t build Theker to run pilots.” So the team skips corporate innovation departments entirely and goes straight to logistics or operations, where deals are real and timelines are shorter. That’s a bet that machines, not slide decks, close sales.
What comes next
Theker has a showroom in central Barcelona and plans to open more as it expands across Europe, the U.S., and Asia. Hiring is the other big push. The company has already received 15,000 job applications and expects to grow from dozens of staff to as many as 120 by year’s end.
Gómez Cano caught herself mid-prediction, joking that she’d also said the team would raise $30 or $40 million. Given the round came in at more than double that, the team’s instincts seem to be running ahead of its own forecasts.
A few things to watch as this plays out:
- Can reconfigurable beat specialized? The whole thesis rests on flexibility being worth more than the raw efficiency of single-task machines.
- Does retail translate to manufacturing? Sorting clothes is one thing. Heavy industrial work is another.
- Will the Samsung talks close? That deal would reshape Theker’s credibility overnight.
For now, the raise is a clear signal that Europe’s robotics scene, and Barcelona in particular, is becoming a real hub. Gómez Cano said keeping HQ there “has never been a barrier to acceleration,” and the funding backs that up. Full details are available at the original TechCrunch AI report.