Investors

The past 2 decades of robotics R&D has unmistakably confirmed that the hardware is ready but the software is not. In other words, it is easy to dump a million dollars into developing a physical robot successfully within a year or two; conversely, it is easy to dump tens of million dollars into developing autonomous robot software unsuccessfully (without marketable progress) over several years. Therefore, to avoid technological depreciation (hardware developed early will have relatively weaker performance by the time the software is ready), our strategy has been to achieve the software before optimizing the hardware.

So much has been invested into bipedal motion control (ex. walking), which is necessary for the tremendous market of outdoor and multi-storey residential locomotion. Yet, smart interactivity (ie. variation-tolerant pick-and-place) is a more fundamental requirement that is a stronger, faster, independent stepping stone to revenue, particularly for industrial applications where the simplicity of flat floors is well supported by wheeled mobility. Therefore, our strategy is to focus on smart interaction technology on wheels, with manufacturing as the first commercial target (the best low-hanging fruit).

In the manufacturing sector, mass production does not need advanced mobile cobots (generally speaking) because traditional robotic arms are already operating near 100% duty cycle with distance-optimized conveyorization, while teaching time is easily amortized over very long production runs of constant outputs. The value preposition of mobile manipulator cobots has always been about mobility (fulfill machine 1, then machine 2, then machine 3, …) and teaching (smarter robot = less human time/hassle). These benefits overwhelmingly serve small-to-medium scale manufacturers because their processes have TIME and DISTANCE for mobility to be useful; VARIATION for improved teaching efficiency to be relevant. Our strategy is to deeply understand this intersection of technical functionality and practical value in order to attain excellent product-market fit.