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the Summer 2024 On the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield, Gecko materialsreturned to the stage at this year’s show to debut new products while delving deeper into commercializing its technology.
Founder Dr. Capella Kirst unveiled four new uses for geCKo’s ultra-strong dry adhesive: a tool for handling semiconductor wafers, a robotic gripper for smooth surfaces (such as solar panels or glass), a curved robotic “end effector” for more irregular shapes, and a multi-purpose gripper for robotic arms.
gCKo technology is inspired by the way real lizards use their feet to grip surfaces. Kerst positions it as a new form of Velcro, but it leaves no residue, can be quickly attached and detached, and requires no electrical charge or suction. A one-inch slab of material can hold 16 pounds, and geCKo dry adhesive can adhere up to 120,000 times, and can remain attached for seconds, minutes or years.
The ability to quickly adapt the dry adhesive to existing manufacturing, picking and other automated applications has proven popular. Kerst won Ford, NASA and Pacific Gas & Electric as customers even before it competed on the Battlefield stage last year.
“Has this year gone by as quickly for anyone else as it has for us?” Kirst said on the TechCrunch Disrupt stage on Wednesday. gCKo’s CEO said her company has tripled the size of its team since last year’s show and completed an $8 million fundraiser. gCKo’s dry adhesive has been used on six space missions in the past year, a testament to the material’s ability to work in multiple environments, including a vacuum, according to Kirst.
On stage Wednesday, Kirst demonstrated a Fanuc robotic arm that uses six gCKo tiles to quickly pick up and move objects, before showing videos of other commercial applications.
In one such video, Kirst demonstrated the use of gCKo to safely move semiconductor wafers faster than current suction or vacuum technology allows.
“Our customers at TSMC, Samsung, Intel and Kawasaki have said we have a goal to (move chips) at 2G speed,” she said. “We decided to take them out of the water and perform 5.4G acceleration repeatedly and reliably using gCKo materials.”