Canadian e-commerce company Shopify Inc is looking accelerating growth of its fulfillment network as it last week shared a plan of buying 6 River Systems Inc, a warehouse technology provider, for about $450 million.
In order to better compete with the likes of eBay Inc and Aamzon.com Inc, in June, Shopify came unveiling its plans of spending $1 billion to operate a warehouse network in the United States.
Shopify’s current acquisition deal highlights the use of robotics technology increasingly drawing the attention of e-commerce companies and investors to continue meeting the expectations of shoppers for their orders to be delivered in ways that are more reliable and faster. The news came following earlier this year acquisition of Canvas Technology by Amazon, to grab the technology developed by the firm by building self-driving carts used in moving the goods around warehouses.
Boston area-based 6 River also sells an autonomous cart system called “Chuck” used to guide workers to pick customer orders through warehouse aisles that could be counted as most systematic way possible.
When order picking process completes, worker has to just press a button and the robot goes away by itself, and this results in minimum human movement across warehouses, said Matt Murphy, who is not only the board member at 6 River Systems but is also a partner in Menlo Ventures which has made investment in the 6 River.
In 6 River, co-founders also include veterans from Kiva Systems, a robotics company acquired by Amazon in 2012 to more efficiently manage the storage and movement of inventories at its own warehouses as it took the Kiva in-house, but Shopify is in plans of continue selling technology from 6 River Systems to warehouses, as said the e-commerce company.
The deal is comprised of about 60% in cash whereas 40% will be in shape of Class A subordinate shares of Shopify with voting powers, which is expected to be concluded in the fourth quarter this year.
