Attabotics CEO on devastating week that brought bankruptcy

https://retailtechinnovationhub.com/home/2025/7/6/attabotics-ceo-scott-gravelle-opens-up-about-devastating-week-that-saw-bankruptcy-and-tesco-deal

by bcantrill • 1 year ago

16 7 1 year ago

retailtechinnovationhub.com

Noumenon722• 1 year ago

I don't consider this article to contain any information from the CEO's interview other than "yeah, we're bankrupt". It also confusingly transitions into an ad and signup appeal for an innovations award ceremony.

anonzzzies• 1 year ago

Grating article vs headline for that reason indeed.

SoftTalker• 1 year ago

"The EDC agreed to approach the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, an early backer of Attabotics, about investing again."

Pension plan investing in a startup? Is this common? I would have expected them to be much more risk-averse.

toomuchtodo• 1 year ago

https://www.otpp.com/en-ca/investments/our-investments/teach...

The OTPP has a team for investing in late stage startups (Series B onward), “Teachers’ Venture Growth.” Seems rational if you believe you can gain asset class exposure at a lower cost than outsourcing it to the usual VCs ($10B invested).

Marsymars• 1 year ago

The OTPP has $200+ billion in assets; they’re basically a bog-standard institutional investor trying to maximize risk-adjusted returns over a long-term diversified portfolio. (And being too risk averse wouldn’t generate the returns they need to fund their pension obligations without raising contribution rates.)

fracus• 1 year ago

The EDC agreed to help find funding, then reported back that they tried and failed, and then put the company into bankruptcy and took over the company for pennies on the dollar. I wonder how sincere their help was.

Noumenon722• 1 year ago

That's actually an interesting story that I totally failed to get by reading the article! I feel bad about criticizing the article now when it was just too neutrally phrased for me to get the gist.

Attabotics CEO on devastating week that brought bankruptcy

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