SoftWear Automation, an Atlanta-based robotics company, is pushing the textile industry toward a new frontier: fully autonomous, localized garment manufacturing. With its patented SEWBOT® technology, SoftWear Automation transforms how soft goods are sewn, making “lights out” factories, zero inventory, and on-demand production a reality for brands worldwide. As of August 2025, the company has raised over $44 million, including a recent $20 million Series B1 round led by Danish fashion giant BESTSELLER.
What Is SoftWear Automation?
Founded in 2012 by a group of Georgia Tech scientists—including CEO Palaniswamy “Raj” Rajan—SoftWear Automation set out to crack one of manufacturing’s final automation frontiers: sewing flexible fabrics. The company spent over a decade developing machine vision and robotics able to manipulate, cut, and sew different textiles with the micro-precision of a human seamstress—automatically recognizing fabric distortions and making real-time adjustments.
The company’s flagship innovation is the SEWBOT®, a robotic workline that combines smart cameras, real-time software, robotic arms, and conventional sewing machines. It was initially piloted to produce bath mats and towels, but now powers local T-shirt factories, home textiles, and denim production lines for major global brands.
How Does SEWBOT Work?
At its core, the SEWBOT platform uses high-speed machine vision and lightweight robotics to map soft, moving fabrics, identify their edges, and then steer them from station to station through various sewing steps—all without human handling. Cameras and sensors replicate the eyes and hands of a skilled operator, so the robots can recognize the exact moment a stitch, seam, or cut is required, adjusting for fabric type and even pattern details.
This enables a single line to turn out a finished T-shirt in just 22 seconds, with labor costs as low as 33 cents per shirt—compared to $1+ per unit in traditional, manual factories. Sewbots can be programmed for multiple garment types, making the system highly flexible.
Origin Story and Founders
SoftWear Automation was born from Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center and funded in its early years by a $2 million Walmart Foundation grant, $4.5 million in Series A rounds, plus research support from the U.S. Department of Defense’s DARPA. Co-founder and CEO Rajan’s vision was to “replace the human operator in fabric handling using computer vision, not by changing the fabric”. Over the years, SoftWear Automation’s team grew to include top-tier roboticists, apparel engineers, and machine vision experts, placing Atlanta on the global map of applied robotics.
Funding and Commercial Milestones
To date, SoftWear Automation has raised over $44 million. The initial rounds—consisting of $2 million from Walmart Foundation, $4.5 million led by CTW Ventures, and subsequent strategic capital—pushed the R&D and first commercial pilots. In August 2025, the company landed a pivotal $20 million Series B1 round, led by BESTSELLER’s sustainability fund, with CTW Venture Partners, SRI Capital, and MacDonald Ventures returning. This marks a strategic shift: scaling production, expanding to new product categories, and accelerating growth across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
BESTSELLER CFO Thomas Børglum Jensen, now a SoftWear Automation board member, stated, “This partnership with BESTSELLER and the support from Invest FWD are not just a vote of confidence in our technology — they are a powerful catalyst for the future of on-demand, localized, and more sustainable apparel manufacturing”.
Impact and Future Vision
Sewbots are poised to dramatically shrink lead times, slash labor and shipping-related emissions, and reshape where and how fashion is made. As CEO Rajan puts it: “Our technology unlocks a future in which fashion brands can produce on-demand, locally, and with zero waste—reinventing what people expect from apparel manufacturing”.With production lines already running for multi-nationals and ambitious expansion plans, SoftWear Automation stands at the vanguard of robotics-first, circular fashion for a global market.
