A big AI and robotics idea that has attracted Walmart and Softbank

Venture-capital giant Softbank notched a $15 billion-plus gain on its 2016 deal to buy Arm Holdings when the artificial intelligence-enabling semiconductor firm went public last month. But not as many investors know about Softbank’s “other” big AI investment, Wilmington, Mass.-based software and robotics maker Symbotic, which Walmart has taken a big stake in itself.

That may soon change.

Symbotic, a company that has already generated market heat selling AI-powered robotic warehouse management systems to clients including Walmart, Target and Albertson’s, is partnering with Softbank to play in a potentially giant and transformative market. The two are teaming up in a joint venture called GreenBox Systems which promises to deliver AI-powered logistics and warehousing to much smaller companies, delivering it as a service in facilities different companies share. They say it’s a $500 billion market, and an example of the kind of change AI can bring to the economy at large.

If it works, GreenBox will reach companies that could never afford the multi-million dollar required investment, in the same way cloud computing puts high-end information tech within reach, said Dwight Klappich, an analyst at technology research firm Gartner.

“I’ve seen a lot of robotics tech and I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” TD Cowen analyst Joseph Giordano said. “Compared to what it replaces, it’s like day and night.” 

Erasing memories of a big WeWork real estate blunder

It might even mute the memory of Softbank’s most disastrous commercial real estate management investment ever, the notorious office-sharing company WeWork. 

Like WeWork, GreenBox is a promise to fuse technology and real estate. Indeed, its  sales pitch of “warehouse as a service” recalls the “space as a service” slogan in WeWork’s 2019 IPO prospectus almost exactly. The big difference: with WeWork, outside analysts struggled to identify what technological advantage WeWork ever offered clients over working at home or in traditional offices, let alone one that justified its peak valuation of $47 billion. WeWork today is worth under $150 million and is now under bankruptcy watch as it warned in August of its potential inability to remain “a going concern,” and more recently stopped making interest payments on debt, asking lenders to negotiate.

At GreenBox, the technology is the whole point, Giordano said. And unlike WeWork, which wanted people to change the way they used offices, Symbotic and GreenBox are out to let companies that already run warehouses boost efficiency and profits, he said. 

“Contract warehousing exists today – but those operations are mostly manual,” said Robert W. Baird analyst Rob Mason.

Softbank, perhaps not surprisingly, doesn’t like the WeWork analogy even being mentioned, with spokesperson Kristin Schwarz declining an interview request for Vikas Parekh, Softbank’s representative on Symbotic’s board (Parekh is…