Robotics & automation expertise
Companies bring us robotics and automation problems: where to automate, whether a concept holds up, how to get from prototype to product, how to build a business around a robot.
About us
A small robotics firm, deliberately close to the work
REInvest Robotics was founded in 2019 by Esben Hallundbæk Østergaard and Richa Hallundbæk Misri, and is based in Odense, Denmark. We help companies solve robotics and automation problems, we run REInvest RoboHouse for teams building hardware, and we invest in early-stage robotics companies. The three are connected: each one keeps us close to how robotics actually gets built and sold.
What we do
Three parts of the same job
We are not primarily an investor, not primarily a consultancy and not a property business. Each part feeds the others.
REInvest RoboHouse
Our building at Landbrugsvej 6: private offices, meeting rooms, a workshop, soldering station and epoxy lab for robotics and hardware teams. We work from it ourselves.
Investment
We invest selectively in early-stage robotics companies and take a board seat rather than operational control. Founders run their companies; we bring direction, network and experience.
Vision
Robotics that extends what people can do
Humans have a unique ability to understand one another. We use creativity and ingenuity to create tools that solve problems.
A robot is not an end in itself. It is a tool, and the point of a tool is to extend what people are capable of. The best robotics companies we meet are not automating humans away. They are removing the dull, dirty and dangerous work so that human judgement, creativity and care can go where they matter.
It is also why we look for founders who can explain, in one sentence, whose life gets better because their robot exists.
The team
Founders
Two people with complementary track records: deep robotics technology experience, and the commercial, governance and company-building experience that turns a technology into a business.
Winner, 2018 Joseph F. Engelberger Robotics AwardOften called the “Nobel Prize of Robotics”
Esben Hallundbæk Østergaard
CEO & Co-Founder, REInvest Robotics
Esben co-founded Universal Robots in 2005 and served as its CTO. Universal Robots created the market for collaborative robots, lightweight arms that work safely alongside people rather than behind a fence, and was acquired by the American test and automation group Teradyne in 2015.
He was later an investor in Mobile Industrial Robots, which Teradyne acquired in 2018. He is a co-founder of Lifeline Robotics together with Søren Stig and Richa Hallundbæk Misri.
He is the youngest recipient of the Engelberger Robotics Award for Technology, an award given since 1977 and often described as robotics' highest honour. He was also an early advocate of Industry 5.0, developing his vision of humans and robots working together to bring creativity, judgement and the human touch back into manufacturing.
He sits on the board of Odense Robotics, the Danish national robotics cluster organisation, on the board of ROEQ, and on the boards of several REInvest portfolio companies.
Universal Robots, co-founder and former CTO
Investor in MiR
Co-founder, Lifeline Robotics
Engelberger Award laureate
Early advocate of Industry 5.0
Board member, Odense Robotics
Board member, ROEQ
Richa Hallundbæk Misri
Co-Founder & Chief Portfolio Manager, REInvest Robotics
Richa works where robotics meets commercial strategy, governance and company building. Her focus is the work that turns a promising technology into a company that can scale: business models, market entry, pricing, partnerships, organisational development and board-level decisions.
For more than seven years, Richa served as Chair of FarmDroid. She joined while the autonomous farming robotics company was still an early-stage startup and chaired the board through substantial growth and international expansion. After a planned chair succession in 2026, she continues as a member of the board.
She is also Chair of Blue Atlas Robotics and Chair of Trendlog, and a co-founder of Lifeline Robotics, the team behind an automatic swab robot built for large-scale pandemic testing. She holds a further board seat at ARIS Robotics.
Across the REInvest portfolio she works with founders and management teams on commercialisation, go-to-market, governance and the organisational foundations a hardware company needs before it can scale. She advises companies outside the portfolio on the same questions. Her perspective comes from working with robotics companies from several sides of the table: as founder, investor, chair, board member and commercial operator.
Former Chair, FarmDroid (7+ years)
Board member, FarmDroid
Chair, Blue Atlas Robotics
Chair, Trendlog
Co-founder, Lifeline Robotics
Robotics commercialisation
Governance & company building
“Richa is direct and never afraid to speak up. She took real ownership of FarmDroid and kept us moving forward, through remarkable growth and through the harder periods, always toward the best outcome for the company.”
Read her article on robotics and AI for smaller manufacturers
How we engage
Close to the founders, out of the day-to-day
- Board level, not operations
- We take board seats and use them. We help set direction, hire well, structure the next funding round and avoid the mistakes we have already made ourselves. The company belongs to its founders, and so does the daily execution.
- Long horizons
- Hardware takes longer than software. We plan for the years it takes to get from a working prototype to a repeatable, profitable product, and we expect to still be around when it happens.
- Rooted in Odense
- We sit inside one of the world's leading robotics clusters. Suppliers, integrators, test facilities and experienced engineers are all within a short drive, and we know most of them personally.
- A physical home
- Portfolio companies and other robotics teams can rent space at RoboHouse, our building in Odense S, with workshop facilities on site and utilities included in the rent. Tenancy and investment are separate things.
- Small on purpose
- We work with a limited number of companies and engagements at a time. It is the only way the experience we are selling actually reaches the table.
Next step
Tell us what you are working on
A robotics problem, a hardware team looking for space, or an investor interested in the sector. All of it reaches the same inbox, and the two of us read it. Please allow a few days for a reply.