Our Story

Origins & Early Years

PickNik Robotics was founded in 2015, originally rallying around the Amazon Picking Challenge and working to push robot manipulation into new territory. That same year, we began executing our first customer engagements—with Google as our first customer.

Prior to that, our team had already been contributing to open-source motion planning tools: in 2008, the Open Motion Planning Library (OMPL) began development, and by 2011, the MoveIt software framework (built atop OMPL) emerged at Willow Garage as part of the legendary Robot Operating System (ROS) project. As Willow Garage shut down, PickNik rose to continue the maintenance and development of MoveIt 1.

Over time, our team became deeply steeped in the ROS manipulation space, gaining an international reputation as world-leading robotics experts—especially within the ROS and manipulation community. In those years, we primarily operated as an engineering services company, helping customers build custom robot applications, integrate hardware, write drivers, debug ROS, and handle all the messy bits that real robotics requires.

The Pivot: From Service to Product (2021 onward)

That was who we were—but things began to shift in 2021. We realized that, while engineering services kept the lights on, they did not scale enough to fund the large, general-purpose investments in core robotics software that the industry needed. Open-source grants are rare (ours numbered just one), and government programs (like SBIRs) demand a credible commercialization path—simply "we'll give it away" didn't suffice.

We also learned something else: to build truly world-class robotics software, we had to run it ourselves internally ("dogfood it") in order to make it robust, battle-tested, and usable at scale. So we began a focused pivot—developing MoveIt Pro, our flagship commercial robotics platform. The goal was to build a software runtime and developer environment that others could use for advanced arm control, mobile manipulation, quick prototyping, and reliable deployment at scale.

As part of that transition, we rebranded the software from its original name, MoveIt Studio, to MoveIt Pro in 2024, reflecting how the platform had matured into a pro-tier system with advanced runtime, decision-making, and orchestration capabilities (more info in the Robot Report).

Today, we are no longer a services company. We are a product-first robotics software company, serving other robot developers and companies—enabling them to build faster, safer, and more reliably. An analogy we like to use is that we are like a video game engine such as Unity and Unreal, but for robotics.

What Is MoveIt Pro?

MoveIt Pro is our robotic application platform for the rapid development of advanced arm control applications. It supports high-reliability, commercial-grade deployments and assists engineering teams throughout the entire lifecycle—from system design experiments to production.

Mission & Philosophy

Mission: Empower organizations to use robots of all shapes and sizes with human-like intelligence to elevate productivity and enrich lives.

Open Platforms and ROS Interoperability: MoveIt Pro works with any type of hardware through deep support of the open-source ROS 2 middleware, the industry standard for robot compatibility. We contribute heavily to open-source ROS, ROS drivers, and many related dependencies. However, our commercial layer enables us to deliver feature-rich, high-quality, supported, and maintained software to commercial customers who are serious about deploying applications quickly and reliably.

Timeline Snapshot

How We've Changed Over the Years

We're now laser-focused on building software that others can use without reinventing the wheel. We've shifted from bespoke service work to delivering a robust, general-purpose robotics platform. Our architecture, feature investments, and internal practices reflect this: we build modular runtimes, safety-certifiable implementations, and support broad hardware compatibility. This change lets us serve multiple customers from a single core, invest deeply in tooling and quality, and ensure we stay ahead in a fast-moving domain. We'd love to work with you.