Locus Robotics Acquires Nexera Robotics to Bring NeuraGrasp AI Grasping to Its Warehouse Picking Platform
Locus Robotics buys Vancouver-based Nexera Robotics, adding NeuraGrasp's patented soft-membrane gripper to its Locus Array autonomous fulfillment system.
Overview
Locus Robotics announced on May 19, 2026 that it has acquired Nexera Robotics, a North Vancouver startup that spent five years developing NeuraGrasp — an AI-driven grasping system built around a patented soft membrane structure. The deal brings Nexera’s entire team and leadership under the Locus umbrella, with the combined technology expected to become available to customers “in the coming months,” according to Robotics and Automation News.
The acquisition is timed to accelerate the commercial rollout of Locus Array, Locus Robotics’ fully autonomous fulfillment system, which launched at MODEX 2026 in Atlanta and was named a top-three finalist for Best New Innovation among more than 200 submissions, as Pulse 2.0 reported.
What NeuraGrasp Does
Warehouse robotics has long struggled with a fundamental problem: most robotic grippers can handle only a narrow range of item shapes and materials reliably. Handling porous textiles, loosely bagged items, perforated polybags, delicate goods, and products with thin or inconsistent packaging has required either human pickers or expensive, purpose-built hardware for each category.
NeuraGrasp, developed through six generations of iteration and validated through tens of millions of robotic picks, addresses this by combining AI-driven grasping intelligence, onboard sensory inputs, computer vision, and a patented soft membrane structure that adapts dynamically to the shape, texture, material, porosity, and weight of whatever it contacts, according to The Robot Report. The system can handle items weighing up to 5 lb. (2.2 kg), and Locus says it expects NeuraGrasp to cover 90 to 100 percent of most customers’ inventory.
“We built NeuraGrasp to solve the manipulation challenges that have held robotic picking back for years,” said Roy Belak, CEO of Nexera Robotics, as quoted by The AI Insider. “Joining Locus Robotics gives us the platform, scale, and customer base to bring this breakthrough technology into the high-velocity fulfillment environments it was designed for, where speed, reliability, and real-world adaptability matter most.”
What Locus Array Is
Locus Array, which debuted at MODEX 2026, is described by DC Velocity as “a fully autonomous fulfilment system that combines mobile robotics, an integrated robotic picking arm, and AI-powered perception with autonomous execution to complete end-to-end workflows without manual intervention.” It is a tower-style robot that moves autonomously through warehouse aisles, using a robotic picking arm to pick and place items stored in traditional warehouse racking.
The platform is designed to reduce manual labor by 90 percent and handles picking, putaway, induction, drop-off, slotting, and replenishment workflows. It deploys in weeks without requiring facility redesign and operates 24/7, running on Locus’s LocusONE AI-driven orchestration platform. DHL Supply Chain was identified as an early access customer, with Robotics and Automation News reporting that DHL’s Global Chief Information Officer Sally Miller said the launch “marks a pivotal moment in DHL’s Accelerated Digitalization journey.”
Locus Robotics, headquartered in Wilmington, Massachusetts, currently operates more than 17,000 systems across 360-plus facilities worldwide, has logged 7 billion cumulative picks and 190 million autonomous mission miles, and serves more than 150 customers in retail, healthcare, third-party logistics, and industrial sectors. It ranks as the fourth-largest mobile robot vendor globally by revenue and second-largest in the order fulfillment segment, according to The Robot Report.
The DHL partnership has a notable history: as previously reported, Locus and DHL reached the billionth cumulative warehouse pick in March 2026.
Strategic Logic
“The frontier of warehouse robotics today is AI-driven mobile manipulation at enterprise scale,” said Rick Faulk, CEO of Locus Robotics, according to The AI Insider. “Being able to efficiently grasp millions of SKU types with both speed and precision is where the next decade of value gets created. Nexera has built something technically significant in that space, and combining it with Locus Array puts us at the forefront of leveling up mobile manipulation across the industry.”
Nexera Robotics was founded in 2021 in North Vancouver and raised $4.5 million in 2025 from BDC Capital’s Industrial Innovation Venture Fund and other investors, as reported by Techcouver. The acquisition terms were not disclosed. The full Nexera team and leadership will join Locus Robotics to accelerate integration of NeuraGrasp into the Locus Array platform.
What We Don’t Know
- The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed by either company.
- The precise timeline for when NeuraGrasp will be available in live customer deployments beyond “the coming months” has not been specified.
- Locus has not disclosed which specific SKU types or retail categories will benefit first from NeuraGrasp integration.
- It is unclear whether NeuraGrasp will be available across all of Locus Robotics’ existing product lines or only on the Locus Array platform.
Analysis
The acquisition follows a recognizable pattern in warehouse automation: a smaller company makes a targeted technical breakthrough in a hard problem — in this case, adaptive grasping of irregular goods — and a larger platform player acquires it rather than building from scratch. For Locus, the deal addresses one of the most significant unresolved gaps in autonomous warehouse fulfillment: the so-called “long tail” of SKUs that are too irregular, soft, or delicate for conventional vacuum-cup or rigid-jaw grippers.
Locus Array’s launch earlier this year positioned the company as a “Robots-to-Goods” fulfillment system, as Robotics and Automation News described it. Adding NeuraGrasp’s 90 to 100 percent SKU coverage claim, if borne out in production, would represent a substantial broadening of that system’s commercial applicability — particularly in e-commerce and apparel fulfillment, where irregular and soft-packaged goods dominate order profiles.