Welcoming AVA Robotics to Our Family
When we first visited the Ava Robotics office in Cambridge, MA, we were instantly captivated by the half dozen robots bustling about the space. The sleek white bodies maneuvered around obstacles and other people with human-like mobility. It was clear that the team at Ava Robotics had taken great care in the design of their flagship product, a self-navigating robot platform that enables a range of exciting applications. The company is a spinoff from iRobot that famously makes the Roomba robot vacuum, and co-founders Youssef Saleh and Marcio Macedo both had senior roles there before deciding to start Ava Robotics.
We’re excited to announce that Innospark Ventures has led Ava Robotics’ seed round of $2.9M, bringing Ava into our growing portfolio. The primary uses of the funds are building out the team, deepening the commitment to AI, and creating exciting new applications for more verticals and uses cases (more on that later). More detail about the investment can be found in this recent Forbes article.
The Need for Intelligent Robotics
Robots have been deployed in a variety of industries, especially certain sectors of manufacturing, for decades now. Humanoid robots were central to science fiction novels as early as the late 1800s and early 1900s. From the 1960s to the 1980s, fixed robotic arms would perform certain lifting, placement, and welding tasks. Other industries adopted remote-controlled technology to make robots more mobile. NASA and other space agencies have sent rovers to the Moon, Venus, and Mars.
Building on these advances from the 20th century, the field of robotics has continued to evolve. Hardware has become more sophisticated with increased degrees of freedom, mobility, and reliability which open doors to new applications. More recently, the explosion of sophisticated software has done even more to advance the technology. Faster programming cycles, accomplishing more advanced tasks, and learning are now possible for different robotic platforms.
Ava Robotics is a great example of a blend of advances in both spheres. Their state-of-the-art hardware incorporates advanced mechanical engineering and physical components while leveraging AI and intelligent software layers to provide safe autonomous mobility. There are many use cases that are quite obvious and still could benefit from advanced robotic technology: hostile environments for humans, emergency response, repetitive labor-intensive jobs that require lifting and moving. But there are other usesboth we and Ava Robotics think could benefit from an intelligent mobile robot: providing concierge and help services at scale in the hospitality industry, remote-viewing of a factory or workspace, precision manufacturing and lab automation, and remote collaboration for dispersed teams.
The market Ava Robotics is operating in is large and growing at a very rapid pace. Collaborative robots or “cobots” are already a $1B market as of 2017; according to Barclays Equity Research, the market will grow at a 60% CAGR through 2025 to over $12B with more than 700k unit sales. Barclays also notes that today cobots account for just 3% of all robot sales, but that figure will jump to 34% by 2025. We feel Ava’s timing couldn’t be better to take advantage of this surge in demand, and they have the product to win a large share of the market.
The Ava Platform
Ava Robotics’ intelligent mobile robots provide a platform for a wide array of applications. As shown in the picture above, you can imagine an offering of diverse attachments that could sit atop their base mobility platform. From a camera and video screen for telepresence, to robotic arms in manufacturing, to a touchscreen and interactive AI program for hospitality, we see tremendous potential for Ava’s product to evolve.
One of the Ava platform’s clear differentiators is its sophisticated object avoidance technology and cliff detection capability, unmatched by competitive products. Owners can feel confident deploying it in a range of environments, from a factory floor to a bustling office space without it bumping people, knocking things down, or falling down a flight of stairs. The team have also taken great care to design and build the Ava platform to make others around it feel comfortable with its smooth contours, adjustable height, and sophisticated movement. It is capable of navigating around any object and finding its way to a specified destination, all without requiring lengthy setup programming time — it learns and maps its environment all on its own! Features like these are all very important for robots moving and working alongside people.
The first production application deployed with the Ava platform is telepresence functionality, enabling remote collaboration in a whole new way. Combining a sophisticated mobility platform with high quality video and audio conference capability, you can use the Ava Telepresence Robot to feel as though you are literally teleporting to another location. This is incredibly useful for distributed teams that sit across multiple offices, agile teams that need to hold a daily standup while a Product Manager is traveling, or any other number of instances where actually being somewhere is just not feasible at a given point in time. As a remote user viewing a meeting or space through Ava Telepresence, you want to feel as if you are there; likewise, as someone in that meeting or space, you want to feel like that remote participant is just as active and engaged as someone in the room. We had the chance to test an Ava Telepresence Robot in the team’s office from our own office in Boston and were very impressed by both the ease-of-use and quality of the interactions from afar.
While telepresence is an exciting application, our investment thesis is built around the idea that the Ava platform will be useful in many environments (some already mentioned above). For example, in a manufacturing or warehouse setting there are needs for inventory management and the movement of parts. An Ava with robotic arms might be able to take precise action in certain scenarios, tasks that are currently reserved for humans. It could help with product testing and manufacturing line inventory replenishment. At a hotel or event venue, an Ava built with an interactive touchscreen and AI-based voice capabilities could answer questions for guests, help make reservations, and show patrons around the property. With strong differentiating product features and a team that continues to innovate, we feel that plenty of other exciting new use cases are on the horizon for the Ava platform.
Going Forward
The Ava Robotics team have built a best-in-class self-navigating intelligent robot platform poised for success in a variety of scenarios. We’re excited about what the future holds and are proud to join them on their journey.
Here’s a bit about Ava from their website:
Leveraging a deep technical heritage from iRobot, Ava Robotics designs and builds autonomous robots that comfortably coexist with humans in workplaces and other large spaces. Ava Robotics is transforming what it means to collaborate by combining autonomous mobility with Cisco’s high definition video conferencing. Ava Robotics’ engineers are developing these products based on what we call “practical teleportation”, enabling workers to easily and safely move around a remote location as if they are physically there.
Innospark Ventures is a Boston-based VC investing in founders and ideas that leverage advanced AI to create a differential, disruptive impact for our economy and society. Learn more: https://innosparkventures.com
