By Anna Tong, Krystal Hu and Kenrick Cai
(Reuters) – Kyle Vogt, former CEO of self -driving car company Cruise, has picked up $ 150 million in a new financing round led by Greenoaks for his robotics startup the Bot Company, appreciating that the company was launched less than a year ago at $ 2 billion, sources told REUTERS.
This capital injection follows an earlier $ 150 million from investors such as Spark Capital and former Github CEO Nat Friedman who appreciated the company on $ 550 million, added sources, because it tries to build the hardware and artificial intelligence-based software to feed the robots.
It reflects the trust of investors in a company that has not yet released its product and has no income, because the attraction is in the potential of robotics powered by AI models that can learn to do new tasks that have established the imagination of Silicon Valley.
The flowering in large language models is to considerably increase the interest in robotics, because LLMS enables robots to process natural language assignments and perform complex tasks, making robots more intuitive and more adaptable for use cases at home or on factory floors. Robotics startups, with different form factors, attract substantial financing and attention and mark a new era of intelligent and adaptive robots.
The Bot Company was co-founded by Vogt, Paril Jain and Luke Holoubek, former engineers of Tesla and GM ownership Cruise. It is intended to create home robots that help individuals with daily tasks, such as household tasks. Although little is known about the design, sources indicate that they are non-human robots equipped with a base and handles.
Both the Bot company and Greenoaks refused to comment.
Much of the excitement in space is also stimulated by humanoid -targeted players such as Tesla and startups such as Figure, who are currently generating financing up to $ 40 billion with little income. Cobot, founded by Amazon veteran Brad Porter, has also collected $ 146 million for non-human robots that focus on industrial automation. The capital needed to build and scale up the complexity of developing robots that integrate into daily activities.
Home Robotics is a category in which tech giants such as Amazon have already invested considerably. Amazon launched his home robot, Astro, in 2021, aimed at home monitoring and entertainment options. Last year it decided to end Astro for the business world to concentrate exclusively on household robots.
Two other robot startups, physical intelligence and 1x have also collected hundreds of millions to create robots that are able to make daily household tasks, such as folding laundry and counter tops.
