Kyle Vogt, the founder of self-driving car company Cruise, resigned as CEO last week amid a series of controversies. He has now secured $150 million in a new funding round led by Greenoaks for his robotics startup, The Bot Company. Launched less than a year ago, the company is now valued at $2 billion, according to sources cited by Reuters. This latest funding follows a previous $150 million investment from backers including Spark Capital and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, who had previously valued the firm at $550 million.
The company plans to create home-based robots that assist people with daily chores. It will compete with companies such as Tesla and Amazon in the household robot space, which is increasingly popular with investors. It has not disclosed many design details about its robots, but they are likely non-humanoid and equipped with bases and gripping mechanisms. Neither The Bot Company nor Greenoaks commented on the new financing.
While the new robots could be used for various tasks, The Bot Company targets the food market first. The firm expects to launch a prototype by 2022 and begin testing it in restaurants, focusing on delivering orders and clearing tables. It also wants to develop a robot to carry groceries and help customers locate items.
Vogt has two billion-dollar exits to his name, including cofounding live streaming service Twitch, which was acquired by Amazon in 2014 for $1 billion. He later helped start Cruise, which GM eventually bought for $1.6 billion.
Despite its promising beginnings, Cruise has found itself in turmoil since the October incident involving one of its robotaxis that dragged a woman to her death on a San Francisco sidewalk. In the aftermath, the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s autonomous vehicle deployment and driverless testing permits. Cruise has since re-applied for the permits but has halted operations as it awaits the outcome of an investigation by the DMV and other experts.
Vogt’s departure is another blow to the self-driving industry, which has come under intense public and regulatory scrutiny. Several senior executives have already left Uber, which was forced to halt its service earlier this month after a fatal accident involving an autonomous vehicle.
Despite the upheaval in the sector, investors remain optimistic about robots’ potential to improve our lives. According to Crunchbase data, robotics-related startups pulled in a record amount of venture capital last month, with the year’s second-largest round going to robot brain developer Physical Intelligence, which raised $400 million at a $2 billion valuation. That’s a far cry from the height of 2021 when robotics-related startups secured more than $20 billion in seed through growth-stage investments.
