MOV.AI has raised $3M in seed funding to develop an industry-grade operating system (O/S) for collaborative robots. The London-based startup is creating an ecosystem where developers, integrators and manufacturers collaborate to produce smarter robots on a large scale for operation and production lines.

The round was led by Viola Ventures, Israel’s leading technology investor with over $2.8 billion assets under management, and NFX, a San Francisco-based venture firm founded by entrepreneurs who previously started 10 companies with exits over $10 billion.

MOV.AI, is a ROS-compatible O/S that enables industry-grade deployment of autonomous robot fleets. It decouples hardware from software, simplifies R&D and field implementation processes, thus making robot automation affordable for all.

MOV.AI Features

Features include: mapping, autonomous navigation, obstacle avoidance, cloud-based software-distribution, compliance with safety and cybersecurity’s best practices, and a modern user interface. Founder and CEO Limor Schweitzer says these features will help facilitate customization.

The main target audiences of MOV.AI are manufacturers of material handling equipment, automation integrators, and other collaborative robot manufacturers.

“At MOV.AI, we have made it our mission to contribute to a world where intelligent robots perform most of the common physical tasks, which will free humankind to be more creative & productive, and enable faster market scalability,” says Schweitzer. “In other words, with the backing of Viola Ventures and NFX, we will be able to transform human operated mobile machines into autonomous robots that work safely together with people and other robots in any environment at all scalable levels.”

“MOV.AI is creating a truly transformative product, bringing software development best practices to the fast growing robotics industry,” says Ronen Nir, General Partner at Viola Ventures. “We are happy to partner with MOV.AI’s talented team and support them, since we believe that the impact and potential value of MOV.AI’s ecosystem will gain traction as more large customers, distributors and developers come on board.”

Gigi Levy-Weiss, managing partner at NFX adds, “MOV.AI is leveraging its in-depth technological aptitude and years of hands-on experience in robotics R&D to bring the commercialization of robotics to the market. This way, the company is reshaping the industry and has the potential to build a huge business. As such, we are proud to invest is such a promising startup.”