The Freestyle Skier Designing Germany's Robotic Workforce

Roman Hölzl, elite freestyle skier turned roboticist, founded RobCo 2020.
- Survived severe spinal fracture at 18; rebuilt from bottom 25% to top 3% at TU Munich.
RobCo makes modular industrial arms for SMBs priced €2–4K/month.
- ~⅓ the cost of two shift workers; handles up to 40kg; deploys in days.
- 70% of customers had never used physical automation before.
Germany’s pension wave 2025–2028 = largest labor exit in national history.
- Core market: small/mid manufacturers who couldn’t afford traditional automation.
UI designed so users just indicate pickup/dropoff; robot figures out the rest.
Sequoia backed in 2022; Lixandru: “very articulate, very high IQ, very ambitious.”
- Hardware VC pitch harder than software — every unit must be rebuilt and deployed.
~100 employees today, Munich HQ, six-day work weeks.

X discourse

@mayukh_panja: “It is really really hard to find young Germans with a STEM education… Germany obviously has very smart people.” (3579 likes)
@adcock_brett: “this is fully autonomous…the robot is reasoning from camera pixels and computing torque to control it’s 30+ motors” (2921 likes)
@ZssBecker: “AI/LLMs are no where near where they need to be to replace engineers.” (2776 likes)
@GalvinAlmanza: “People acknowledging that this creates a generational resume gap and overworked remaining staffers etc” (1306 likes)
@andreasklinger: “2,500 students across Europe are getting into robotics right now… Several multiple billion dollar companies will come” (1212 likes)
@spaceandtech_: “Germany-based Agile Robots has introduced its humanoid robot, Agile One, designed for industrial environments.” (492 likes)

Sam Eifling — Sequoia Capital (Feb 2025). Investment led by Luciana Lixandru, ex-lead on UiPath Series A. · 2025-02-18 · Read on sequoiacap.com