Diversifying from defense, CEO Ben Wolff is leading the robotics innovator to new products and global opportunity.
Wolff admits it’s easy to go to work. “It’s easy when you manufacture products that are meaningful, when you’re working on a product that’s cool, that’s now, and that can change the world,” he says. “And there’s so much more to be done. We’re constantly innovating. We are doing things that people have never done before. It’s tremendously exciting.”
Originally established at the University of Utah in the early 1980s with a focus on prosthetics and biomechanics, Sarcos was spun off and came to be a part of Raytheon in 2007. “Under Raytheon, Sarcos was focused on providing products for the military,” Wolff says.
When government spending dried up, particularly after sequestration, the time was ripe for Sarcos to break away and rethink its business model, and Wolff helped lead an ownership company that bought Sarcos’ assets from Raytheon. The company’s IP portfolio includes more than 300 patents and represents $265 million of R&D.
“We’ve been involved in robotics longer than anyone on the planet,” Wolff says. “But through our history, we’ve been custom product manufacturers. We wanted to take our technology capabilities and turn them into products that could be sold all over the world.”
Today, staked with growth capital from GE Ventures, Caterpillar, and Microsoft, Sarcos is focused on commercializing a line of products under the Guardian brand that seem poised to fulfill this goal. The Guardian S is a surveillance and inspection robot capable of traversing over challenging terrain and through small, confined spaces. The Guardian GT is a human-controlled, dual-armed robot that can lift 1,000 pounds. And the Guardian XO resembles something from the next Iron Man movie, a wearable exoskeleton suit that can amplify a wearer’s strength and endurance. Read More….