Walmart agreed to acquire Alert Innovation and will likely eliminate some of the 300 jobs the tech company brought when it moved to Andover in July.
Alert makes robots to automate grocery stores by filling customer orders. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Walmart said it is looking for a “quick close,” pending approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“The vast majority of Alert employees will transition over to Walmart in their current capacity,” Walmart spokesman Scott Pope said in an email to the Boston Business Journal, which first reported this story. “There is a very small group that will not move over in the transition.”
Alert CEO Fritz Morgan will become a vice president of Walmart Robotics, while the company will continue to operate under Alert Innovation. The company has been customizing Walmart’s fufillment centers since 2016.
Alert moved from Bilerica to a new, 100,000-square-foot facility on Dascomb Road in Andover in July. About 75 percent of the company’s 450 employees work at the new facility. The new building has 70,000 square feet of office space and 30,000 square feet of lab space.