Attabotics filed for insolvency after Export Development Canada sought to enforce security over assets

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Calgary robotics startup Attabotics Inc. filed under Canada’s bankruptcy act last week after its largest secured creditor, Export Development Canada, sought to enforce its security over the company’s assets, according to documents filed with an Alberta court.

The insolvent company, now down to nine non-executive employees after laying off 192 of its 203-person staff and suspending most of its operations on June 30, is now soliciting options to sell its assets or business over the next month after it failed to raise financing that would have enabled it to fund a spate of new business.

Attabotics last Wednesday filed an intention to make a proposal under the Federal Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, and two days later received approval from Justice John Gill of the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta to obtain $1.5-million in interim funding from EDC, its largest secured creditor. The company had previously raised $220-million in financing from backers including EDC, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, Coatue Management and Comcast Ventures plus $34-million from the federal Strategic Innovation Fund.

Attabotics, incorporated in 2016 and founded by CEO Scott Gravelle, made automation equipment used to fulfill orders that transforms product warehouses into high-density, vertical and scalable storage structures inspired by ant-colony frameworks. Instead of moving goods from aisle to aisle, Attabotics robots move up and down vertical structures, grabbing goods with extendable arms, then bringing them back to workers who prepare them for packing and shipping.

Attabotics chair Edna Conway said in a sworn affidavit that after spending tens of millions of dollars annually on research and development, the company in late 2022 attempted to accelerate deployment of its robotics warehousing system to new industries, customers and markets around the world. E-commerce had surged as consumer spending shifted online during the pandemic.

The company worked at several sites across North America with customers such as Canadian Tire, Gordon Food Services, Pan Pacific Pet and Modern Beauty Supplies.

While revenue reached $11.4-million in 2022, “revenues began to sharply decline” as interest rates shot up, constraining consumer spending and lowering demand for e-commerce, Ms. Conway wrote. That led some customers to delay planned projects with Attabotics, and revenues plummeted to $8-million in 2023 and $3-million in 2024.

Last year the company amassed $44.4-million in operating expenses and lost $49.3-million. In the first quarter of 2025 Attabotics generated just $800,000 in revenue and had $11.2-million of operating expenses, losing $12.5-million and ending the quarter with $6.3-million of cash and equivalents, down from $13.6-million a year earlier.

Ms. Conway wrote the business did begin to stabilize by late 2024, resulting in $30-million of new business to be delivered in 2025 and 2026. That included a supply agreement signed with British grocery conglomerate Tesco.

But when Attabotics tried to raise new capital to finance the orders, investors “expressed concern with the applicants’ cash flow challenges and elected not to participate in further financings,” she wrote, which caused a ripple effect across the investor community. That prompted the company to shelve financing efforts, which meant it couldn’t proceed on delivering on the orders “on the planned schedule,” she wrote.

By the time EDC served Attabotics with a notice of intention to enforce security on June 18 – triggering a 10-day waiting period before the agency could proceed – the company was already in discussions with various parties regarding the sale of its business or assets – including 150 granted and pending patents. The new money from EDC “is only sufficient to fund the applicants’ business for a period of 30 days on a massively scaled down basis,” Ms. Conway wrote.

In an e-mailed statement, EDC spokesman Louis-Antoine Paquin said the federally owned export finance business “has been a significant supporter to Attabotics. Over the past three years, EDC has provided both investments and financing to the company to support their Canadian manufacturing technology and supply chain ambitions. EDC’s support for Attabotics has been crucial for the company, enabling it to mature their technology while staying Canadian. EDC is providing financing support to Attabotics in support of its court approved restructuring process.”

The company’s three largest secured creditors are all federal Crown corporations or agencies: EDC is owed $46.3-million, followed by Business Development Bank of Canada, owed $2.8-million, and Western Economic Diversification Canada, which is out $2.5-million. The company has 131 secured creditors in addition to past and present employees.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story stated that Export Development Canada pushed Attabotics toward insolvency. In fact, EDC served the company with a notice of intention to enforce security on June 18, an action under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act by which a secured creditor informs an insolvent entity that it intends to enforce its security over the entity's property, thus preserving its rights. That triggers a 10 day waiting period before the creditor can take any action. The story has been udpated.