In an era where automation and AI are transforming industries, Saman Farid, Founder and CEO of Formic Technologies, stands out as a visionary driving manufacturing productivity. With his background in engineering and venture capital, Saman brings a unique perspective to the challenges and opportunities in this sector.

Formic’s Origin Story

Saman’s career began as an engineer, building manufacturing facilities across China and the US. After launching, scaling, and exiting a software company, he spent over ten years as a venture capitalist at Baidu Ventures investing at the intersection of AI, machine learning, and the physical world. From this vantage point, he identified a clear market gap: “There was a tremendous opportunity to improve the adoption of robotics and AI in the physical world,” Saman notes. “The tools were thriving in Silicon Valley but had very, very limited adoption in the real world. I realized that if I didn’t start this company now, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.” In 2020, Saman left to found Formic.

Formic’s Solution

Formic is automating processes to address the critical labor shortage in the manufacturing industry. With the number of unfilled US manufacturing jobs projected to hit 2.1 million by 2030, factories often sit idle, unable to meet production demands. Formic’s robotics solutions help fill these labor gaps, while enhancing factory productivity and production quality.

Image Credits: Stanley Yuan via X

Saman highlights why fewer than 10 percent of American manufacturers utilize industrial robotics: high complexity, lack of expertise, and prohibitive upfront costs. “Factories that are not familiar with this technology have a hard time making an investment in something they believe is such a huge risk”, he explains, “What Formic does to resolve those concerns is provide the full service offering. Factories pay us an hourly rate for the robots to do a job and we do everything, from the system design, to deployment, to maintenance. This end-to-end solution takes the pain and headache away and makes their lives easier.”

Formic’s Customers and How Formic Delivers Value

Formic’s manufacturer customer base includes food and beverage, aerospace and defense, and healthcare products. Today, Formic’s robots operate in nearly 100 manufacturing facilities, each customized for specific production tasks such as packing or stacking.

The company has achieved a 98% contract renewal rate, a testament to the value and reliability of Formic’s solutions. “It speaks to the fact that we solve a critical need in our customers’ production processes,” Saman notes. “We provide service and uptime guarantees, perform all necessary maintenance, and use our software to remotely manage and diagnose issues. As a result, the customer has peace of mind that their production process won’t be stopped because of us.”

The Role of Software in Formic’s Solutions

Beyond robotics hardware, Formic has built automation software that enhances robotic efficiency, reliability, and adaptability.

A key application of this software is creating digital twins of customers’ factories, which helps Formic determine each facility’s idiosyncratic requirements. The software selects and designs the optimal robots and processes, which before Formic, required significant engineering resources.

Formic Core is the company’s proprietary operating system, which feeds data at the robot level back to Formic’s central command center. “It allows us to automatically generate the programs that run on the robot,” Saman explains. “Today the robot may be working on one product and tomorrow they may be working on another. The robot needs to be adaptive to all those different requirements, so Formic Core allows our customers to quickly switch between different tasks, instantly generate the robot program, and validate it to that task.”

Formic’s Future Vision

Saman highlights the significance of building a company in manufacturing automation at a time of unprecedented growth. “All of our capabilities in the physical world are downstream of manufacturing power,” he explains. “At the end of the day, our ability to have a resilient food supply chain, a strong military, good infrastructure, roads and schools – all comes from our ability to actually make these things.”

With Formic’s recent $27.4M Series A fundraise, the company is building on commercial success by expanding to new geographies and use cases. Formic is also investing in advanced AI-enabled software to continue accelerating their growth. In the long term, Saman envisions a future where American manufacturing is revitalized and globally competitive, driven by advanced automation.

“If we do our jobs well, we will be the largest workforce provider for American factories.”

To sign up for progress updates on Formic and for more information on open roles, visit https://formic.co/.