Europe’s manufacturing sector faces a growing labour shortage, while much of the continent’s industrial base remains difficult to automate with traditional robotics.
In this conversation from the EUVC Summit & Awards Show 2026, Tomaz Stolfa, Co-Founder and CEO of Sunrise Robotics, joins Patrick Murphy, Partner at Tapestry VC, to discuss what it takes to bring robotics into high-mix, low-volume manufacturing, where flexibility and reliability matter as much as the technology itself.
Tomaz explains why manufacturers care less about the label of “AI-driven robotics” than whether a system can reliably take repetitive work off people’s hands, why even 99% robustness can fall short on a factory floor and how Sunrise is reducing automation projects that typically take 12 to 18 months to a matter of weeks.
They also discuss Europe’s advantages in robotics, the importance of getting hardware into production early and why building a deep-tech company requires investors who are aligned for the long term.
Highlights
Europe’s growing manufacturing labour gap
Why traditional automation struggles with high-mix production
What manufacturers actually need from robotics
Why 99% reliability is not enough
How Sunrise is cutting deployment times from months to weeks
Why Europe has an advantage in industrial robotics
What it takes to finance deep tech for the long term
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(01:00) Europe’s manufacturing labour gap
(03:00) Why traditional automation falls short
(04:20) Cutting deployment from 12–18 months to weeks
(06:00) Why 99% reliability is not enough
(08:00) Physics, safety and actually shipping robotics
(09:00) Getting robots onto factory floors and scaling production
(11:00) Why Europe is a strong place to build robotics
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