KEWAZO raises funding to expand LIFTBOT in heavy industry

KEWAZO raised new funding on March 19, 2026, bringing total capital raised to $35M as it expands LIFTBOT across heavy industrial sites.

The Munich and Houston-based company builds LIFTBOT, a battery-powered lifting robot designed for vertical material movement during industrial maintenance, turnarounds, capital projects, and construction work. The round was backed by Chevron Technology Ventures, Asahi Kasei, Benson Capital, Mana Ventures, Gaingels, Atlas Ventures, lead investor Schooner Capital, and existing investors True Ventures and Cybernetix Ventures.

LIFTBOT replaces crane use and manual handling for repetitive vertical material movement, where crews need to move scaffolding, insulation, piping, tools, coatings, mechanical parts, and electrical or instrumentation materials through congested work areas. KEWAZO says the system is battery-powered, remotely controlled, works from a compact 7 by 14 foot footprint, and can lift more than 8,000 pounds per day with a three-person crew.

KEWAZO says LIFTBOT is already deployed at more than 20 industrial sites across North America and Europe, including refineries, petrochemical plants, chemical complexes, and power facilities. The robot is used by asset owners and service providers to reduce crane dependency, cut manual handling, improve safety, and make maintenance schedules more predictable.

Chevron Technology Ventures sits close to refinery and energy infrastructure, while Asahi Kasei brings exposure to materials and chemical production environments. Those are the kinds of sites where manual material movement, shutdown windows, safety procedures, and equipment access can decide whether a maintenance job stays on schedule.

LIFTBOT began with scaffolding logistics, but KEWAZO now positions it as a broader vertical material logistics system for heavy industry. They says the robot can transport scaffolding, insulation, piping components, mechanical and electrical equipment, tools, coatings, and other project-critical materials, and that pilot deployments are available in North America and Europe.

The company is also trying to turn deployment work into a data layer. KEWAZO says LIFTBOT deployments give it access to structured operational data from high-barrier industrial environments, forming the basis for a Physical AI platform intended to increase site transparency before expanding automation.

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