Mujin Story: From Inception to Global Automation (Episodes 1-6 Full Series)

From a 41㎡ garage in Tokyo to powering the world's first unmanned warehouse. The full 6-part chronicle of how Mujin revolutionized industrial robotics through autonomous machine intelligence.

Since its founding in 2011, Mujin has pursued an uncompromising mission: revolutionizing industrial robotics through machine intelligence and motion planning.

Traditionally, deploying factory robots required months of tedious manual teaching by highly trained technicians. Mujin set out to develop the universal “robot brain”—software that enables off-the-shelf industrial arms to perceive their environment, generate collision-free trajectories on the fly, and adapt to unpredictable physical conditions in milliseconds.

Born in Tokyo, yet staffed by top talent from over 20 countries with more than half the team hailing from outside Japan, Mujin is a uniquely global deep-tech company. How did two founders from completely different worlds turn an impossible dream into an international robotics powerhouse?

Here is the complete six-part story of Mujin’s inception, breakthroughs, and rapid global expansion.

📖 Series Episode Index

Episode 1: Meet the Founders (2009-2011)

Polar Opposites Crossing Paths

Dr. Rosen Diankov, Co-Founder and CTO, graduated top of his class at UC Berkeley, skipped his Master’s, and earned his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University. Today, he is recognized worldwide as a pioneer of real-time autonomous motion planning algorithms (creator of OpenRAVE).

Co-Founder and CEO Issei Takino followed an entirely different trajectory. After university in the United States, his fascination with Warren Buffett led him to join ISCAR, an Israeli precision cutting-tool manufacturer acquired by Berkshire Hathaway. Serving demanding industrial plants across Japan, Issei established himself as an elite sales leader.

Their paths converged at the 2009 International Robot Exhibition (iREX) in Tokyo. Rosen was demonstrating PR2 robots for Willow Garage (the creators of ROS), while Issei had been recruited as a bilingual sales specialist for the booth. Standing side-by-side, Rosen was struck by Issei’s commercial acumen and ability to cut straight to what factory customers genuinely cared about. Rosen knew immediately: “If I ever start a business, it has to be with Issei.”

“I Was Ready to Go to Hell and Back with Him”

Initially, Issei politely declined—he was thriving in his sales career. But Rosen refused to take no for an answer. After returning to the U.S., Rosen sent persistent emails, eventually flying back to Japan and showing up directly at Issei’s family home in Osaka.

💬 Issei Takino: “Nobody can guarantee whether a startup will succeed. But when someone possesses this degree of unyielding determination, you know that even after crashing into concrete walls, you will pick yourselves up and keep fighting. I was ready to go to hell and back with Rosen.”

Gathering 1 million yen in seed capital, they registered the company in July 2011 as MUJIN (a blend of Mujin [unmanned] and Mujinzou [limitless potential]).

Episode 2: First Customer & First Funding (2011-2012)

“Buy Me 20 Minutes!” The Denso Wave Showdown

In late 2011, the founders secured a critical demonstration opportunity in front of executives at leading robot manufacturer Denso Wave. Days before the meeting, their algorithmic software still refused to run. After pleading for a two-week extension, demo day arrived—and the software was still failing.

As Issei drove toward the venue, Rosen was in the passenger seat battling carsickness while furiously typing code. “I need 20 minutes—stall them with small talk and presentation slides!” Rosen begged.

At the venue, Issei paced before the executive panel, presenting Mujin’s vision at length. As the audience grew visibly restless and Issei prepared to offer a formal apology, Rosen finally hit the start button. Miraculously, the demo sprang to life, executing flawless robot trajectories to unanimous praise.

Landing Canon and 75M Yen Series A with UTEC

Denso Wave was so impressed that they encouraged Mujin to host a small one-table reference exhibit at iREX 2011. Issei bought two plain white shirts and hand-stitched “MUJIN” across the chest for their first uniform.

At the booth, Canon managers stopped by. Seeking to optimize robot cycles across manufacturing lines, Canon believed in the young startup’s vision and awarded Mujin its first commercial contract.

In August 2012, The University of Tokyo Edge Capital (UTEC) completed rapid due diligence and invested 75 million yen in Series A funding, setting Mujin’s journey in motion.

Episode 3: The Dream Team Assembles (2012-2014)

Top Global Minds Drawn to Tokyo

In summer 2012, Huan Liu, an MIT graduate researcher (now President of Mujin China), visited Tokyo. After staying up all night discussing robotics with Rosen, Huan was completely won over. Within one month, he resigned from his job and university in the U.S. and relocated to Tokyo.

Top talents from Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, MIT, Paris, and Tokyo University soon followed, drawn by the audacity of the mission.

41㎡ Garage & The “Mujin Family” Culture

Our first headquarters in Koishikawa was a 41-square-meter garage. Whenever an industrial robot was placed on the floor, it blocked the hallway—engineers had to step outside the building and enter through the rear door just to talk to someone on the other side of the room.

To support international engineers living in Japan without friends or family, Issei cooked hearty dinners every night, handled visa paperwork, and helped them find apartments. This deep empathy formed the bedrock of the “Mujin Family” culture.

The Portuguese “Mujin Hero” at DMS 2014

Two days before the 2014 Design & Manufacturing Solutions Expo (DMS), our bolt-picking demo broke down due to vision calibration errors. Rosen phoned an algorithmic researcher in Portugal with whom he had collaborated at CMU.

The engineer booked the next flight out of Lisbon, landed at Haneda Airport on the morning of the exhibition, and located and fixed the bug within two hours before doors opened. The demo was a runaway triumph, and he earned the company title of “Mujin Hero,” eventually joining Mujin full-time.

Episode 4: Pivoting to Logistics (2014-2016)

“Pick Worker” Controller & The METI Robot Award

In 2014, JAFCO and UTEC invested 600 million yen in Series B funding. In January 2015, Mujin launched “Pick Worker,” the world’s first hardware-agnostic intelligent robot controller. By generating collision-free trajectories dynamically, it eliminated manual teaching entirely. In 2016, this breakthrough won the prestigious 7th Robot Award (Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Prize)—an unprecedented achievement for a 30-person startup.

An Inquiry from ASKUL: Igniting the Logistics Revolution

While advancing in manufacturing, an unexpected email arrived from e-commerce giant ASKUL Corporation: “Can you achieve teachless piece-picking in our logistics centers?”

ASKUL executives had visited over 100 robotics manufacturers and academic labs, only to be told: “Warehouse picking involves tens of thousands of ever-changing SKUs—it is physically impossible.” Searching Google for “industrial robots teachless,” Mujin was the very first result.

Mujin engineers traveled directly to the warehouse to inspect the floor. Bound by a mutual dedication to frontline reality, Mujin and ASKUL formalized a strategic alliance in December 2015. By late 2016, the world’s first commercially viable teachless logistics piece-picking robot was live on the production line.

Episode 5: World’s First Fully Automated Logistics Center (2017-2018)

Oshiage Warehouse Office & The In-House Chef

By May 2017, team headcount hit 40. Mujin relocated to a vast converted warehouse in Oshiage, near Tokyo Skytree. Equipped with a heavy industrial elevator, engineers could install full-scale industrial arms directly inside the facility.

It was in Oshiage that our signature cultural perks were born: daily buffet lunches prepared by our in-house Michelin-trained chef and our Swiss JURA espresso bar.

JD.com Shanghai: 40,000㎡ World’s First Unmanned Facility

Word of Mujin’s capabilities reached Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com (Jingdong), who proposed an audacious challenge: fully automating an entire 40,000-square-meter fulfillment center in Shanghai from end to end.

While such a facility would ordinarily require 500 manual pickers, Mujin orchestrated 20 industrial robots to handle receiving, scanning, sorting, packing, and palletizing. In February 2018, the world’s first fully automated logistics center went live, sorting 200,000 packages daily with just five technicians on site for supervision.

This milestone triggered global acclaim, earning Mujin four premier venture awards: the JEITA Venture Award, the Entrepreneur Award, the Japan Venture Award, and the Japan-US Innovation Award at Stanford.

Episode 6: Global Scale & Strategic Partnerships (2018-2019)

PALTAC: Depalletizing & Mixed Palletizing at Scale

Building on piece-picking, Mujin tackled mixed-case depalletizing and palletizing. In summer 2018, leading daily-goods distributor PALTAC Corporation deployed four Mujin depalletizing robots at RDC Niigata to unload arbitrary carton cases from incoming pallets.

In November 2019, at PALTAC’s RDC Saitama facility, Mujin followed with eight intelligent mixed-case palletizing robots, calculating optimal high-density packing patterns for roll cages and pallets in real time.

Strategic MBO & 7.5 Billion Yen Financial Restructuring

In early 2019, Mujin completed a Management Buyout (MBO) to buy back shares from early venture capital investors (UTEC). This crucial decision secured permanent strategic autonomy for founders Issei and Rosen, backed by a 7.5 billion yen growth financing credit facility ensuring patient, long-term capital for heavy industrial R&D.

Global Supply Chain Alliance with Fast Retailing (UNIQLO)

In November 2019, Fast Retailing (parent company of UNIQLO) signed a strategic global partnership with Mujin to automate its worldwide logistics network. Deformable, bagged apparel items had long stymied traditional automation; Mujin’s 3D perception and custom end-effectors solved the challenge.

During this period, Mujin received seven major honors—including the Prime Minister’s Award, the JSME Medal for New Technology, and the Top 10 New Products Award. With the team growing past 100, Mujin relocated to its current headquarters in Tatsumi, Tokyo, featuring an expansive Robot Innovation Center and private fitness gym.

🚀 From Pure Tech Startup to Global Solution Provider

From two laptops in a 41㎡ garage to orchestrating the most sophisticated automated facilities on earth, Mujin proved that autonomous, intelligent industrial robotics is not science fiction.

By eliminating arduous, hazardous labor and freeing human beings to pursue creative, fulfilling work, Mujin continues to push the boundaries of automation.

Our journey has only just begun.

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