Intuition Robotics will open its U.S. headquarters in Silicon Valley in 2017 to bring on board key talent and start go-to-market operations in the U.S.
Intuition Robotics, which unveiled its ElliQ companion robot in January 2017, has announced funding from iRobot Ventures, the strategic investment arm of iRobot, and equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd.
This investment brings the total funding in the company to $6 million across various funding instruments.
Intuition Robotics will open its U.S. headquarters in Silicon Valley in 2017 to bring on board key talent and start go-to-market operations in the U.S. The announcement also says the first live demo of ElliQ will take place Feb. 16 in Jerusalem, Israel at the 2017 OurCrowd Global Investor Summit.
“Intuition Robotics’ ElliQ is an exciting advancement in cognitive computing and human-robot interaction,” says Hanns Anders, director at iRobot Ventures. “iRobot has been a longtime proponent of the development of robotics technologies to support the world’s aging population.”
“The advances being made by Intuition Robotics are critically important to keeping this important population active and engaged,” Anders said.
ElliQ is designed to help older adults stay socially and physically active by using a combination of movements and voice interactions to communicate with end users. ElliQ can learn a user’s personality, preferences, and habits thanks to machine learning. ElliQ can then suggest going for a walk, watching a TED talk, or contacting family members through Facebook Messenger.
“Our goal is to leverage a combination of our proprietary technology, emotive interaction models, and gerontology insights with elegant design to empower older adults to intuitively interact with technology, easily connect with content and loved ones, and pursue an active lifestyle,” Dor Skuler, founder and CEO of Intuition Robotics, told us during the ElliQ announcement. “We like to think of her as part communication coordinator, part facilitator of lifelong learning, and part coach.”
