Xenex scales UV-disinfecting robot production to meet COVID-19 hospital demand

Founded in Houston in 2009 by epidemiologists Mark Stibich and Julie Stachowiak, Xenex launched its LightStrike pulsed-UV disinfection robot commercially in 2013. By 2019 the company had turned the corner to profitability, posting about 20% revenue growth that year, and had deployed robots in over 500 hospitals worldwide.

When COVID-19 escalated in early 2020, hospitals worldwide urgently needed effective disinfection tools. CEO Morris Miller told Crunchbase News that partners in Asia and Italy began ordering hundreds of the $125,000 robots, prompting Xenex to work seven days a week and plan to hire more than a dozen additional production staff to meet the surge.

The rapid scale-up yielded hundreds of orders, with Miller projecting 400-600% revenue growth for 2020. Xenex’s robots have since been deployed in thousands of health-care facilities, including surgery centers, nursing homes, and even non-medical sites such as police stations and hotels, cementing the company’s role in pandemic-era infection control.

Hundreds of orders for Xenex’s $125,000 LightStrike robots, projected 400-600% revenue growth in 2020, and a shift to profitability after years of investment.

The pandemic created an immediate, worldwide need for reliable hospital disinfection, triggering a surge in demand for Xenex’s UV-robot technology.

Xenex already possessed a proven, FDA-cleared product and a manufacturing base that could be scaled quickly with additional labor and shifts.

Leadership’s decision to authorize overtime, hire quickly, and prioritize order fulfillment turned a crisis into a substantial growth opportunity.

Rapidly scaling production and workforce to meet crisis demand can capture sales and restore profit, but demands agile ops, clear communication, and quick capacity expansion.

Following the initial wave of orders, Xenex continued to receive bids for thousands of robots and expanded its customer base beyond hospitals to include surgery centers, skilled-nursing facilities, pharmaceutical clean rooms, and even corporate sites. The company kept its production lines running at elevated capacity, maintained a workforce increase of over 10%, and reported that its LightStrike robots are now in use in over 1,000 health-care locations globally, underscoring a lasting shift in infection-control practices.