Company
About us
Brightpick offers the world’s most efficient warehouse automation solution for ecommerce and grocery fulfillment.
The company’s end-to-end robotic solution autonomously picks, consolidates and dispatches orders in large, small and micro fulfillment centers.
The solution takes less than a month to deploy, enables warehouses to reduce their picking labor by 95%, and cuts costs for order picking by half.
Brightpick uses Brightpick Autopickers, autonomous mobile picking robots that are like humans with carts, autonomously picking and consolidating orders as they move through the warehouse aisles. The entire Brightpick Autopicker fleet and fulfillment process is orchestrated and optimized by Brightpick Intuition software.
Brightpick is part of Photoneo Brightpick Group, headquartered near Cincinnati, OH, which has more than 300 employees and 5000 technology installations across the US, Europe and Asia. Photoneo Brightpick Group’s customers include leading companies such as General Motors, Volkswagen and KUKA.
Brightpick launches Brightpick Autopicker, the world’s first commercially-available autonomous mobile picking robot
Photoneo Brightpick Group moves headquarters from Europe to the US
Taiwania Capital leads $19M Series B extension and brings the total size of the Series B investment round to $40M
IPM Group and Alpha Intelligence Capital lead $21M Series B investment round
Brightpick is launched as a standalone business unit and the company is renamed to Photoneo Brightpick Group
Photoneo launches MotionCam 3D, the most advanced 3D scanner ever created using a novel patented CMOS sensor
Photoneo develops AI platform for intelligent picking and depalletization applications
Photoneo reaches 1000 technology installations worldwide
Photoneo launches Bin Picking Studio, a versatile robotic software for industrial bin picking applications
Earlybird Venture Capital leads a $9M Series A investment round
Photoneo launches first commercial product, the PhoXi 3D Scanner
Branislav Pulis joins as fourth co-founder to lead the sales organization
Credo Ventures leads a $2M seed investment round
Photoneo is founded by Jan Zizka, Tomas Kovacovsky and Michal Maly, three PhD students at Comenius University specializing in machine vision, physics and AI
Leadership Team
Jan Zizka
Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder
Jan Zizka
Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder
Jan is the CEO of Brightpick and its parent company, Photoneo Brightpick Group. Before co-founding Brightpick, Jan co-founded and led Photoneo, which scaled to become one of the leading 3D machine vision companies in the world with customers such as General Motors, Volkswagen and KUKA. Before that, he was a research engineer at Micro-Epsilon, a leading sensor manufacturer. Jan has filed over 20 patents, ranging from 3D sensing methods to mobile robotics. He earned a PhD in Computer Vision from Comenius University, during which he also did research on computational cameras and optics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Tomas Kovacovsky
Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder
Tomas Kovacovsky
Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder
Tomas is responsible for developing and implementing new technologies. Before that, he co-founded Photoneo and co-developed its patented “Parallel Structured Light” technology as well as over 20 vision systems based on novel computational photography techniques and algorithms. Prior to that, he was a senior research engineer at Micro-Epsilon, a leading sensor manufacturer. Tomas is an expert in computer vision and robot orchestration software and, in 2017, was recognized in Forbes’ “30 Under 30 Europe” as one of the 30 brightest young entrepreneurs and innovators in the “Industry” segment. He earned a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from Comenius University.
Michal Maly
Director of AI and Co-founder
Michal Maly
Director of AI and Co-founder
Michal is responsible for artificial intelligence and machine learning development. He specializes in the construction of rational agents based on reinforcement learning, and has been instrumental in developing Brightpick’s industry-leading robotic picking capabilities. Prior to Brightpick, he co-founded Photoneo, where he also led the AI team, focusing on object recognition, environment mapping and robotic piece picking. Before that, he was a senior systems engineer at AT&T. Michal earned a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science from Comenius University.
Branislav Pulis
Chief Revenue Officer and Co-founder
Branislav Pulis
Chief Revenue Officer and Co-founder
Branislav leads the international sales and business development teams for the company, working directly with online retailers and grocers to fully automate their order fulfillment. Before co-founding Brightpick, Branislav co-founded Photoneo, where he built up its international sales team and global distributor network. Prior to that, he was the Head of Project Management at KBC Group and transformation advisor at T-Mobile. Branislav earned his MS in Accounting from the University of Economics in Bratislava.
James Cox
Chief Commercial Officer
James Cox
Chief Commercial Officer
James is responsible for Brightpick’s growth strategy in North America, where he focuses on customer success pre- and post-contract for a multitude of customers within the ecommerce, grocery and 3PL markets. He has 20 years of customer engagement experience in the materials handling and supply chain industries. Before joining Brightpick, he was VP of Sales at Dematic, where he led Dematic’s sales efforts in the Northeast Region, delivering the region’s all-time highest sales in 2021. Prior to that, James was General Manager at Equipment Depot. He earned a BA in Finance from Bowling Green State University and a MBA from Xavier University.
Adrian Kratky
Chief Operating Officer
Adrian Kratky
Chief Operating Officer
Adrian is responsible for the project management and delivery, manufacturing, customer support and day-to-day operations of the company. Before Brightpick, Adrian was Director of Robot Vision at Photoneo, where he led software development, on-site integrations and customer support. Before joining Photoneo, Adrian spent nine years at Lenovo, most recently as senior manager for incentives and commissions in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Adrian started his career at Accenture as a senior programmer. He earned a MS in Cybernetics from the Slovak University of Technology.
Ivana Zizkova
Chief Financial Officer
Ivana Zizkova
Chief Financial Officer
Ivana is the CFO of Brightpick and its parent company, Photoneo Brightpick Group. Prior to this role, she was Director of Finance and Operations at Photoneo since 2018. Before joining Photoneo, Ivana was Finance Team Lead at IBM.
She earned a MS in Economics from the University of Economics in Bratislava.
Andrey Bakholdin
VP of Marketing
Andrey Bakholdin
VP of Marketing
Andrey is responsible for developing and executing Brightpick’s business development, marketing and growth strategies. Prior to this role, he was Chief of Staff at Brightpick and worked on corporate strategy, fundraising and investor relations. Before that, he was VP of Investments and Strategy at factory14, a diversified ecommerce platform, and an investment professional at Blackstone, where he invested in private and public markets across the US and Europe. Andrey started his career in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) at Moelis & Company. He earned a BS in economics and econometrics from University College London.