Ocado Intelligent Automation
Acquired by Ocado Group · 2023 · $12.7M Ocado Intelligent Automation was a Collaborative AMR company founded in 2015 and based in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It was acquired by Ocado Group in 2023 for $12.7M.
6 River Systems was founded in 2015 in Waltham, Massachusetts by Jerome Dubois, Rylan Hamilton, and Chris Cacioppo. Dubois and Hamilton were former Kiva Systems executives (Kiva was acquired by Amazon in 2012 and became Amazon Robotics). The company's flagship product is Chuck, a collaborative autonomous mobile robot that guides warehouse associates through pick, pack, sort, and replenishment workflows in e-commerce and 3PL facilities.
Shopify acquired 6 River Systems in September 2019 for approximately USD 450 million (roughly 60% cash and 40% Shopify Class A shares) as part of its Shopify Fulfillment Network strategy. That strategy was unwound in 2022–2023; on May 4, 2023 Shopify announced it would sell 6 River Systems to UK grocery-tech company Ocado Group for just USD 12.7 million, representing a substantial write-down on the original investment. Ocado completed the acquisition on June 30, 2023 and subsequently folded 6 River Systems into Ocado Intelligent Automation, which now sells Chuck AMR alongside Ocado's grocery-focused automation portfolio. The 6river.com domain now redirects to ocadointelligentautomation.com.
Sources: Shopify 2019 acquisition (USD 450M) — Business Wire, Sept 9 2019; Ocado acquisition (USD 12.7M) — TechCrunch, The Robot Report, May 8 2023; acquisition close — Ocado Group press release, June 30 2023.
6 River's collaborative-AMR playbook defined an entire category, and its ownership journey (Kiva alumni to Shopify to Ocado) is a cautionary case study in warehouse-robotics M&A.
United States
