Austin's Diligent Robotics Raises $3M to Put Robot Assistants in Hospitals | Austin Inno
Inside the people, companies, and organizations making moves today.
By Brent Wistrom - Editor, Austin Inno
October 01, 2019, 09:28am CDT
For two-plus years, Diligent Robotics co-founders Andrea Thomaz and Vivian Chu have been developing, testing, and iterating on what may look like a simple idea -- bringing robotic assistants to hospitals to help nurses with routine chores.
Now, the Austin startup is ready to commercially launch its robot, named Moxi, starting with an unnamed hospital in Dallas.
Moxi, seen in action in the video below, has a menu of capabilities, including gathering supplies and delivering them to patient rooms, carrying around lab samples and removing dirty sheets, and bringing them to the laundry room.
The idea is to reduce the number of mundane tasks that trained nurses have to deal with so that they can better focus on patients -- and all the things robots aren't yet trusted to do.
Now, after trials at four hospitals, they're ready for their next stage.
On Tuesday, Diligent Robotics announced it has raised $3 million in seed funding as it takes Moxi out of beta testing and into hospitals. The funding was co-led by two California-based firms, True Ventures, and Ubiquity Ventures. Next Coast Ventures, Capital Factory, Pathbreaker Ventures, Boom Capital, and Grit Ventures also added to the round, along with angel investors. That brings total funding, including a $2.1 million seed round and a $750,000 National Science Foundation grant, to about $5.8 million.
“Over the last year, Diligent Robotics has made rapid progress in delivering and testing Moxi in multiple hospitals,” Rohit Sharma, partner at True Ventures and board member for Diligent Robotics, said in a news release. “The team continues to demonstrate unmatched robotics-specific innovation by combining social intelligence and human-guided learning capabilities."
The company currently has 15 employees and is hiring software engineers, operations, business development, and sales roles through 2019 and 2020.