From Broken Robots to Series C: How Dexory Turned Grit into Growth

“We built the world’s tallest robot. And it broke in 5 minutes.
And you know what? That was OK.”

That’s how Andrei Danescu, founder and CEO of Dexory, summed up years of building, failing, and rebuilding in one sentence during our latest LaunchPod episode.

Before the Series C headlines and the global fleet of autonomous robots transforming warehouse operations, there were long nights, rejections, and a relentless belief that this would work.

1. Bootstrapping builds muscle you’ll need later

Before raising their first investment, Dexory bootstrapped for over five years.
Andrei worked two jobs to fund early prototypes, pitched dozens of investors, and got rejected 127 times.

“When something truly matters, you find a way,” he says.

Those years forced the team to make smarter decisions, move fast, and stretch every resource — habits that later made them investable. Bootstrapping isn’t just survival; it’s training for resilience.

2. Grants are not “free money”, they’re leverage

Instead of giving up after failed fundraising attempts, the Dexory team went after public funding and EU grants, eventually securing €5.5M.

They treated grants like venture capital: milestones, deliverables, accountability — and used that support to fund R&D and refine the tech before scaling.

👉 Lesson: Grants can buy time, validation, and technical maturity. If you treat them strategically, not as charity.

3. Pivot when your market changes — even if it hurts

Originally focused on retail robotics, Dexory faced a dead end when the pandemic hit.
Instead of waiting it out, they pivoted fast to logistics, where warehouses were desperate for automation.

It meant rebuilding their stack, rebranding, and repositioning the company.
That bold move became their breakthrough.

👉 Lesson: A pivot isn’t failure, it’s alignment. The faster you face reality, the quicker you’ll find traction.

4. Sell the vision before the product

Like most hard-tech founders, Andrei had to sell before everything worked perfectly.
He learned to pitch the impact, not just the specs.

“You don’t sell features,” he says. “You sell the world that exists once your product works.”

👉 Lesson: Vision-first founders win the early believers who help you survive the imperfect stage.

5. Persistence compounds

Fast forward to today — Dexory has closed its Series C, backed by top European investors.
Their fleet of autonomous robots now powers global warehouses, turning physical spaces into digital, data-driven systems.

And it all started with one broken robot.

👉 Lesson: Every “failure” is a prototype. If you’re building something hard, let it break — then rebuild smarter.

Andrei’s reading list for founders

At the end of our chat, Andrei shared three books that shaped his mindset as a founder:

📘 Winning – Jack Welch
📘 The Art of the Start 2.0 – Guy Kawasaki
📘 Extreme Ownership – Jocko Willink

🎧 Listen to the full podcast episode here: 

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