The most interesting thing about a modern robotic arm is often the empty space around it. It’s a safety buffer, a concession to physics and programming, a moat of wasted air. You program one robot to pick, another to place, and you keep them far enough apart that their paths never intersect, because choreographing that intersection in real time is a problem that has traditionally required bespoke engineering, specialized hardware, or simply more square meters. In a demonstration cell for the GESSbot Duo, a dual-arm system for palletizing, two robotic limbs reach across a shared workspace, their trajectories a complex, interwoven dance calculated on the fly. The space between them is not empty. It is full of intention.
This is the territory Evasive Robotics is mapping. Founded in Dresden in 2024, the company sells EvaLib, a real-time motion-planning software library designed to be the traffic controller for a crowded robotic floor. The user defines the task,pick this, place there,and EvaLib handles the collision avoidance, trajectory optimization, and multi-robot coordination, promising to do it on standard industrial hardware [Evasive Robotics]. It’s a bet on density: that the next efficiency gain in automation won’t come from a faster robot, but from more robots working intelligently together in the same footprint.
The bet on shared workspace intelligence
The company’s wedge is an orchestration layer meant to be agnostic to the robots it commands. EvaLib is pitched as vendor-independent software, a layer that sits above the proprietary control systems of various robotic arms from different manufacturers [Startup.eu, October 2026]. The goal is to reduce the integration effort and specialized programming required whenever a manufacturer wants to pack multiple units into a cell for assembly, palletizing, or intralogistics. Instead of treating each robot as an island with a guarded perimeter, EvaLib attempts to model the entire shared workspace as a single, solvable puzzle.
Technical moat. The library’s stated capabilities form a clear stack:
- Collision-free motion planning. The software automatically calculates paths that avoid static obstacles and, crucially, other moving robots.
- Trajectory optimization. It seeks not just any safe path, but an efficient one, optimizing for time and smooth movement.
- Real-time coordination. This all happens in real time, allowing for dynamic adjustments if a robot is delayed or an object is out of place.
The public face of this technology is the GESSbot Duo, a dual-arm system developed in collaboration with W. Gessmann GmbH. It serves as a demonstrator, showing two arms directly collaborating on palletizing and bin-picking tasks [Robotics Connected]. The software handles the control and motion planning, coordinating multiple robot axes “intelligently and without collision” [W. Gessmann Industrial Controllers, March 2026].
A team built for the factory floor
The founding team reflects a blend of algorithmic depth and industrial pragmatism. It’s a large, five-person group that seems designed to cover the spectrum from code to customer.
| Role | Name | Key Background |
|---|---|---|
| CEO & Co-Founder | Stefan Zetzsch | Dipl.-Ing. from TU Dresden; 10 years of operational-business experience in medium-sized companies [Evasive Robotics presentation][IDT Media, September 2025] |
| CTO & Co-Founder | Frank Peters | M.Sc. from TU Freiberg; six years in algorithms and robotics; described as the idea originator [Evasive Robotics presentation][IDT Media, September 2025] |
| Co-CTO & Co-Founder | David Kuß | Dipl.-Inf. from FH Dortmund; 20 years in robotics and automation, with experience commissioning lines internationally [Evasive Robotics presentation][IDT Media, September 2025] |
| COO & Co-Founder | Tom Sauer | Listed as a co-founder; part of the robotic team [Evasive Robotics][LinkedIn, Tom Sauer, retrieved 2026] |
| Co-Founder | Randy Gelfert | Listed as a co-founder [Evasive Robotics] |
This structure suggests a company built to translate a complex technical capability into a product that fits existing industrial workflows. The experience spans from the algorithm whiteboard to the factory floor in Taiwan, the United States, and Switzerland [IDT Media, September 2025].
Fuel for the first steps
In October 2026, the company closed an oversubscribed pre-seed round of €2.1 million [Startup.eu, October 2026]. The financing drew a mix of European venture capital and angel support, with Nucleus Capital, xista science ventures, Vanagon, and Robin Capital participating [Startup.eu, October 2026]. The capital is earmarked for further product development and commercial expansion, moving from demonstrators like the GESSbot Duo to broader customer projects. According to a RocketReach snapshot, the company employed 18 people as of 2026, indicating rapid early hiring post-founding [RocketReach, retrieved 2026].
The integration puzzle
The ambition is clear, but the path is lined with the gritty realities of industrial sales. The primary risk for Evasive Robotics isn’t technical novelty,motion planning is a deeply studied field,but commercial integration. Success requires convincing manufacturers and system integrators to adopt a new software layer into their already complex, mission-critical environments.
- Proof beyond the demo. The GESSbot Duo is a powerful showcase, but the leap from a controlled demonstrator to varied, messy real-world deployments is significant. The company will need to publicly name flagship commercial customers who are using EvaLib in production.
- The standardization hurdle. While pitched as vendor-agnostic, deep compatibility with the control systems of major robot manufacturers (ABB, Fanuc, KUKA, etc.) will be crucial. Each integration is a development and testing burden.
- Performance guarantees. In industrial settings, “real-time” isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s a hard requirement with millisecond tolerances. Proving reliability and deterministic performance under all load conditions is a non-negotiable benchmark for trust.
The company’s answer likely lies in its team composition and partnership model. The collaboration with W. Gessmann GmbH isn’t just a tech demo; it’s a blueprint. By embedding its software deeply with an industrial controller manufacturer, Evasive Robotics can aim to sell a solved system rather than just a library, reducing the integration burden for the end customer [LinkedIn, Niklas Weber, retrieved 2026].
The next twelve months
The immediate roadmap will be defined by the deployment of its pre-seed capital. Key milestones to watch for will be the announcement of its first non-demonstrator commercial customer, a deepening of partnerships with other automation hardware firms, and perhaps a shift in messaging from “motion-planning library” to “collaborative robot controller.” The team’s growth from five founders to 18 employees suggests a build phase; the next phase must be an install phase.
The question Evasive Robotics is implicitly answering isn’t just about making robots smarter. It’s about what we do with the space we have. For decades, factory automation has expanded outward, claiming more floor space to accommodate safety margins and sequential processes. The new constraint isn’t capability, but density. EvaLib, in essence, is a proposal: that the most valuable real estate in the factory of the future isn’t the floor under the robot, but the air through which it moves. The bet is that manufacturers, pressed for space and efficiency, will pay to fill it.
Sources
- [Evasive Robotics] Technology and About Us pages | https://evasive-robotics.com/
- [Startup.eu, October 2026] Dresden’s Evasive Robotics raises more than €2.1 million in oversubscribed pre-seed round | https://www.startup.eu/investments/evasive-robotics-2-1-m-pre-seed-10-2026
- [Robotics Connected] Company profile referencing GESSbot Duo | https://roboticsconnected.com/companies/2156-evasive-robotics
- [W. Gessmann Industrial Controllers, March 2026] Article on GESSbot Duo collaboration | Source from research snippets
- [IDT Media, September 2025] Profile of Evasive Robotics founders | https://www.idt.media/automation/this-is-how-a-start-up-plans-to-greatly-simplify-the-use-of-robots/665370
- [Evasive Robotics presentation] Founder background slides | https://easyfairsassets.com/sites/304/2024/09/AAA-ChemnitzPresentation.pdf
- [LinkedIn, Tom Sauer, retrieved 2026] Profile description | https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-sauer-evasive/
- [LinkedIn, Niklas Weber, retrieved 2026] Post on GESSbotDuo advancement | https://www.linkedin.com/in/niklas-weber-engineering/
- [RocketReach, retrieved 2026] Employee count snapshot | Source from research snippets