In May, Amazon (AMZN) announced its newest step forward in automation technology: a robot called Vulcan that is “changing the way we operate.”
On Thursday, shares of Teradyne (TER), the company supplying one of the robot’s key features — its limbs — surged after a report revealed its involvement in Amazon’s futuristic “robot with a sense of touch.”
Hunterbrook, a hedge fund and newsroom, along with thematic equity investor Citrini Research, published a report showing that the Vulcan robot’s limbs are produced by robotics manufacturing firm Universal Robots, which Teradyne acquired in 2015 in an all-cash deal worth $285 million.
Teradyne stock rose 6.3% on Thursday following the report.
Hunterbrook — up roughly 13% net of fees year to date as of the end of Q2, according to an investor note reviewed by Yahoo Finance — labeled Teradyne a “pick-and-shovel” play in the AI and robotics sectors. The firm disclosed it was long on the stock when its story was published Thursday morning.
Teradyne, which manufactures testing equipment for chips used in various electronics, saw its stock price surge during the pandemic amid a chip boom and a furious rally across risk assets, peaking at north of $160 in 2021. The stock has been volatile in the years since, falling as much as 50% from its peak and nearly reclaiming its record high a year ago. Shares settled at $97.05 on Friday, paring some of Thursday’s gains.
CEO Greg Smith noted on the company’s first quarter earnings call that Teradyne’s robotics division was working to withstand a “very challenging macro backdrop” but had just received the largest order in its history from a global automotive manufacturer.
Smith also noted that the company was seeing customers push order delivery from the second quarter out into future quarters due to uncertainty around the Trump administration’s tariff regime.
In its report, Hunterbrook flagged that UBS analysts previously wrote in a note on Teradyne that conversations with the company “confirmed that Vulcan could represent the first tangible outcome of [Teradyne’s] strategy to engage more directly with large OEMs,” which has “already sparked interest from additional customers, potentially marking a turning point for [Teradyne’s] industrial automation (IA) business.”
Thursday’s report from Hunterbrook is the first to explicitly link Amazon to the firm. Teradyne declined to comment. Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.
Amazon has touted its Vulcan robot as a major step forward in developing robots with a “sense of touch,” the company said in its announcement about the technology.
Picking and stowing items in Amazon’s fulfillment sites has long been challenging for less dexterous robots, but Vulcan represents a significant leap forward, the company said.
Smith told analysts and investors during Teradyne’s Q1 earnings call that one of the company’s biggest growth areas is poised to be advanced robotics.
“We would want to significantly outgrow traditional industrial automation peers in this space, mainly because we’re addressing an underpenetrated market, the advanced robotics segment,” Smith said, “and especially the segment of robotics where people are trying to automate processes that need to be in the presence of people or interoperating with people.”
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