HaaS 100 (late January 2025)

Hardware-as-a-service (HaaS) is gaining momentum across a variety of industries. Many of the early adopters of HaaS are in robotics, offering robots-as-a-service (RaaS) to decrease barriers to entry and improve overall value to customers. Others offer machine-as-a-service (MaaS), device-as-a-service (DaaS), or equipment-as-a-service (EaaS).

Some companies pitch outcomes more than assets, offering data-as-a-service or platform-as-a-service models. From network-as-a-service to facades cleaning; managed service providers (MSPs) to managed security service providers (MSSPs); and autonomous construction equipment to diagnostic sensors and 3D printers, these companies are on the cutting-edge of their fields.

This post is part of a series about modern hardware companies, their business models, and the future of HaaS. For more, see posts from, early and late October, early and late November, early and late December, and early January. 

Gather AI

• Founded date: 2017
• Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Employees: ~50
• What they do: Drones with computer vision for automated inventory management
• Key customers: NFI, GEODIS, DSV, Barrett Distribution Centers
• Website: gather.ai

Gather AI develops autonomous solutions for inventory monitoring. The company’s drones navigate through warehouses, scanning products 15 times faster than humans do for cycle counting and stock-taking, and providing warehouse operators with real-time inventory updates in a web dashboard. The drones read and infer bar codes, search for misplaced inventory, and find and review inventory exceptions, reconciling the data and images they collect with the warehouse management system (WMS). Newer features include Location Occupancy, which leverages computer vision to evaluate warehouse space and notify operators when products and pallets can be consolidated to maximize space efficiency.

Gather offers its drones as part of an “inventory-as-a-service” solution: For a fixed recurring fee, customers have access to the drones, their accompanying software, the data they collect, and a dedicated project manager to support everything from setup to troubleshooting. There are no hidden fees—customers pay as they scale with Gather’s per-warehouse pricing. The solution requires neither infrastructure changes nor process changes, and is easily deployed and quickly scalable.

“Using our computer-vision enabled drones, we helped one warehouse find $1M in lost inventory,” says founder and CEO Sankalp Arora. “This is just one example of many that exist where businesses are losing millions every year. An as-a-service model allows us to replace traditional manual techniques with an automated approach to inventory, improving accuracy, cutting costs, reducing the hazards of manual work at heights, and driving revenue through faster, more accurate shipments. And no one has to acquire or maintain hardware to reap these benefits.”

Chef Robotics

• Founded date: 2019
• Location: San Francisco, California
• Employees: ~35
• What they do: AI-enabled robot for food assembly
• Key customers: Amy’s Kitchen, Chef Bombay, Sunbasket
• Website: chefrobotics.ai

Chef Robotics equips off-the-shelf robot arms with proprietary utensils, depth cameras, and weight-sensing platforms that allow the robots to detect food topology and location, and to pick and dispense accurate portions into trays, plates, and bowls. Each Chef robot occupies the same footprint in the kitchen as a human does; to operate, all it needs is 120V, compressed air, and a WiFi connection. Kitchen operators simply slide Chef onto their food lines as a plug-and-play solution, and the robot can be transferred between lines during a shift to meet production demands. Chef can be configured to work with any ingredients, cooking methods, portion sizes, trays, and conveyors; its cameras constantly scan the remaining food and use analytics to determine when supply is low. ChefOS is the underlying software that drives the robot arm’s decisions.

The company offers its solution through a robots-as-a-service (RaaS) model: Rather than purchasing the robots, customers pay a flat annual fee for an end-to-end service that includes hardware, software, shipping and training, service and maintenance, downtime and onsite support, upgrades and updates, parts replacement, and 24/7 real-time monitoring. Customers’ Finance teams see better cash flow management because they’re only paying operating expenses, and they realize ROI in year one.

“With a RaaS model, customers don’t need robotics experts in-house,” says Founder and CEO Rajat Bhageria. “RaaS also directly incentivizes us to deliver benefits, which contributes to improved customer satisfaction. That simply can’t be said for capital purchases. And as our AI model continuously improves through training data, it optimizes everything from deposit consistency to spillage reduction across all of our customers at once. That’s one enormous benefit of an interoperable system.”

AMP

• Founded date: 2015
• Location: Louisville, Colorado
• Employees: ~170
• What they do: AI-powered waste sortation at scale
• Key customers: Waste Connections, Recycling and Disposal Solutions (RDS), Keurig Dr Pepper
• Website: ampsortation.com

AMP leverages AI and automation to modernize the world’s recycling infrastructure and maximize the value in waste. The company’s product portfolio includes a Vision system for real-time, continuous material characterization; Delta robotic arms for sortation; Jet for high-volume, high-speed air-jet sortation; and Vac for film removal and recovery. The AMP ONE system is a smart sortation facility—both custom and turnkey—for municipal solid waste. The solution separates bagged trash into its component parts—mixed recyclables, organics, and residue—autonomously transforming single-stream waste into valuable bales. Every bale is assigned a barcode that provides details about its material composition and purity. As such, waste and recycling leaders can reduce labor costs, increase resource recovery, and deliver more reliable operations.

The company offers AMP ONE with zero down payment and a pay-per-ton pricing model. AMP calls its business model sortation-as-a-service—a version of hardware-as-a-service (HaaS) in which customers get access to industry-leading technology with capital efficiency. AMP takes care of the operations, maintenance costs, and operating system upgrades. The solution’s modular design makes it easy to scale capacity over time.

TEAL

• Founded date: 2004
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Employees: ~50
• What they do: Managed central plant-as-a-service
• Key customers: Estrella at Seminary, The Laura at East River, The Green at Plum Creek, Gables Cherry Creek
• Website: tealsystems.com

TEAL manufactures managed industrial plant solutions for building owners, developers, and property managers. The company’s solutions are designed for domestic hot water (TEAL System), hydronic heat (TEAL Aquatherm), and chilled water (TEAL iPlant). Unlike traditional HVAC and domestic hot water systems with their “break and repair” cycles, TEAL’s hardware is equipped with sensors and connected to its proprietary Beacon monitoring technology—machine learning algorithms that virtually supervise the hardware to identify and resolve potential issues. TEAL’s AI ensures zero downtime, so a building never runs out of hot water. Customers include hospitality and healthcare facilities, school campuses, and multi-family and commercial office developments.

The company offers its solution as an end-to-end “mechanical-equipment-as-a-service” or “central-plant-as-a-service” solution: Clients don’t own, operate, or maintain the equipment themselves. TEAL’s solution includes the infrastructure, its remote monitoring technology, and a comprehensive warranty that covers all maintenance and repairs. The company’s Network Operations Center is staffed with engineers working 24/7/365 to monitor and respond to its systems.

OTSAW

• Founded date: 2015
• Location: Burlington, Massachusetts (HQ in Tampines, Singapore)
• Employees: ~40
• What they do: Autonomous robots for the security, logistics, and cleaning industries
• Key customers: Starhill Global Reit, Wilson Security, Wisma Atria, LandSkyAI, foodpanda
• Website: otsaw.com

OTSAW is a robotics and AI company that offers solutions for a range of industries, including logistics, security, and cleaning. Its fleet includes TransCar, an automated guided vehicle (AGV) for material transport to enhance healthcare facilities’ internal logistics. TransCar moves linens, food, medical supplies, and more without human intervention, and can interface with elevators and automatic doors. Other solutions include the O-R3 (an autonomous outdoor surveillance robot), the O-RX (a UV-C LED disinfection robot), and Camello (a last-mile delivery robot). OTSAW’s robots are powered by technologies such as 3D SLAM, 360° computer vision, sensor fusion, AI, machine learning, and real-time data processing.

The company’s business model is robots-as-a-service (RaaS). A subscription includes the robots themselves, as well as setup, training, full support and maintenance, and ongoing software updates to ensure the hardware is running at peak performance at all times. RaaS lowers the barrier to entry for OTSAW’s customers through lower upfront costs.