Homegrown logistics firm gets $4.5M from Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund

A company that specializes in robotic logistics has been chosen as the second recipient of a grant from the city's $100-million fund designed to boost the local economy.

ATTAbotics will receive up to $4.5 million from the OpportunityCalgaryInvestment Fund (OCIF), officials announced Wednesday.

The funding will allow the company to scale up its manufacturing facilities and create 150 new jobs, a press release from CalgaryEconomicDevelopment said.

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ATTAbotics designs and manufactures automated storage and retrieval systems to store, access and move warehoused goods with robotics.

"OCIF funding was critical in determining if we would be able to scale up our manufacturing inCalgary," said Scott Gravelle, who co-founded ATTAbotics in 2016.

"ATTAbotics is aneconomicengine for e-commerce operations and we are proud the systems and technology we are exporting worldwide are developed inCalgary."

The OpportunityCalgaryInvestment Fund was launched by the cityin April to support investments "that spur growth and create jobs in strategic sectors," the release said.

"The scrutiny that goes into the project reviews on behalf of taxpayers is very thorough, thoughtful and rigorous and the opportunity to support ATTAbotics met all the criteria," said Barry Munro, chair of the fund's board of directors.

"This is a chance to support local entrepreneurs making a significant investment in diversifying our economy doing whatCalgaryis known for creating and producing systems and technology the world wants."

The OCIF funding will support construction of two production centres at a new facility in the YYC Global Logistics Park atCalgaryInternational Airport.

Since its launch, OCIF has received more than 175 applications.

The first OCIF grant of $1.5 million was awarded in October to MobSquad, a company that provides Silicon Valley startups with software engineers who work remotely from Canadian satellite offices.

The next OCIF announcements are expected in early 2019.

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