VGo Communications has amassed $10.3 million in four funding rounds, the last in 2013. VGo received much media attention for the use of their VGo mobility devices for remote presence schooling. They also got attention for an intellectual property infringement suit by InTouch Health which they won in late 2012.

Vecna Technologies, a Cambridge-based builder of healthcare solutions including tugs, software and a clever 24/7 maintenance network system, with this acquisition, can expand their healthcare client services to include offering remote presence care using VGo’s technology.

Similar to the strategic acquisition of Segway by Chinese Ninebot – a situation where Segway was suing Ninebot for IP infringement – and where Segway’s IP passed on to Ninebot, VGo’s IP, which has already undergone thorough court vetting, passes on to Vecna in the VGo acquisition.

Consolidation of VGo into Vecna is under way and VGo’s staff is moving into Vecna’s Cambridge facility.

Some start-ups have proven concepts, achieved adequate funding and have begun to provide unique solutions to long-term problems needing robotic assistance, e.g.:

• In healthcare, Ekso Bionics (a spin-off from UC Berkeley and 6-year old Berkeley Bionics) and their exoskeleton are beginning to penetrate rehabilitation therapy centers while a 2008 start-up, Xenex Healthcare Services’ room disinfection robot is helping to disinfect ICU’s and hospital surgeries everywhere.
• In remote-presence healthcare, 6-year old VGo Communications and their VGo mobile robots have begun to focus on outpatient and remote-presence communications especially for pediatric care, while 2009 American transplant to Sweden Giraff Technologies is shipping their mobile robots as nursing home assistants.

• In underwater exploration, Liquid Robotics, a 2005 start-up focused on recording whale songs has transitioned into their very popular and successful multi-purpose wave gliders used in oil platform monitoring, for naval security, and tracking hazardous materials, while CMU 2012 spin-off Platypus LLC autonomous airboats are being evaluated by public and private agencies for river and reservoir water analysis.
• In materials handling, as companies begin again to invest in upgrading their material handling hardware and systems after the economic crisis, Aethon (a 2005 VC funded project) and their hospital tugs, 2010-Swedish start-up RobCab AB and their multi-purpose tugs, and 2003-founded Seegrid and their warehouse trucks and tugs are all benefiting.

• In consumer products, toys and gadgets, 4moms (an 8-year old start-up) and their line of baby devices is a huge success story, particularly their robotic baby rocker named Mamaroo, while Sphero, the robot ball, by 2011 Canadian start-up Que Innovations, is just beginning, and 2009 start-up Romotive‘s $149 Romo is selling thousands of their cute little iPhone-carrying devices.
• In artificial intelligence, 2010 start-up Universal Robotics and their Neocortex spatial vision software are now selling sensor-based machine learning devices for automated pick and place, high-end 3D inspection and de-palleting operations while 2012 Willow Garage spin-off Industrial Perception‘s similar 3D vision-guided technology is in trials for truck loading and unloading applications. Both have made serious AI inroads into random 3D spatial loading and unloading methodology.
• In agriculture, 2012 Stanford VC start-up Blue River Technologies and their lettuce thinning system, 2009 Spanish start-up Agrobot and their strawberry picking robot, 2012 start-up Autonomous Tractor and their cab-less farm tractor, and 2009 French start-up Wall-Ye and their vineyard robot are all VC funded, in testing mode and look quite promising while 2009 start-up Harvest Automation recently finished their beta testing and have begun to sell their speedy little plant-moving robots.
• In unmanned aerial systems, to mention just a few of the many start-ups, CyPhy Works and their unique tethered infrastructure inspection UAS, Canadian Precision Hawk (previously Winehawk Labs) and their survey UAVs and Swiss SenseFly (recently acquired by Parrot) and theirs surveying and 3D mapping are all showing future apps likely to penetrate the commercial marketplace for UAS.
• For small niche robotic markets, CandyCam and their event camera systems, and QBotix and their solar panel positioning robots are both doing well.
• Stealth companies like Redwood Robotics may be building a competing product to Rethink Robotics’ Baxter robot. TerrAvion may be working on an aerial system for agriculture and Vishwa Robotics is working on a wide range of classified projects.

• And in the way-out-there category, Momentum Machines and their hamburger maker, Foldimate and their laundry folding system, Zen Robotics and their trash sorting system, Puzzlebox Productions‘ mind-controlled quadcopter, TechJect‘s miniature flapping Dragonfly UAS and Anki, the new Apple app/toy combo.

Robotic projects often get funded for strange reasons. Many are at the whim (in scientific circles they call it “inspiration”) of researchers attempting to conquer an interesting scientific challenge.  This often translates into commercial projects just to get the funding to continue to do research. Many crowd-funded projects fit into this latter category. Others are funded to solve specific as-yet-undiscovered methods of doing something that needs to be done. The space and defense programs (NASA and DARPA) are perfect examples of the latter and are referred to as “strategic funding” and there’s a whole industry of technology transfer to make their inventions into commercial ventures.

In the last few years, the influence of crowd-funding is shaking things up and can be seen in some of the start-ups cited above. Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Angel List have all had their robotic hits – some even raising millions. TechJect‘s Dragonfly is an example. The spin-off from GA Tech raised over $1 million on Indiegogo! 3D printer start-ups also did quite well and FormLabs‘ Kickstarter campaign was a record-breaking $2,945,000 from 2,068 backers (FormLabs was only seeking $100,000)!

Crowd funding may be a passing fad, but for the last couple of years these types of sites have provided start-ups with a quick sense of whether their idea will sell to the public or not — and they don’t require giving away equity. Crowd funded projects also pop up on the radar of venture capitalists searching for interesting new ventures. There is no doubt that slick marketing and performance videos do well in that environment. Also, equity crowd funding is coming; the Securities and Exchange Commission is working on the rules.

Crowd funding supporters believe the process helps entrepreneurs become profitable while rewarding investors; others are concerned about online fraud and bad investments stimulated by lively videos focused toward inexperienced investors.

Nevertheless, crowd funding is here to stay and will soon include equity as a perk of investing. Further, it is spreading globally. Although robot start-ups and other long-lead projects don’t get as much attention as some of the other projects, the number of robotics-related crowd funded projects is up and the sophistication of the presentations is also up – both a boon to getting the attention of serious equity investors (VC’s and hedge funds).

Finally, a review of the makeup and geography of 235 start-up companies can be seen in the chart below. Robotic start-up companies are privately held robotic companies established to develop a concept or product or robotic-related service for sale but don’t yet have it all together. From the chart below one can see that few are attempting to become industrial robotic manufacturers; instead, most are offering service robotic solutions for industry, home use, health care and academia.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• New ETF (NASDAQ:ROBO) focuses on robotics industry
• Robo-Stox: A dream come true
• Are investments in robotics capital intensive?
• Forget the octocopter, let’s talk about Kiva

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

On Sunday, January 13, CBS News 60 Minutes reported on robots. Their focal point was jobs and the changing nature of work. As a backdrop to their comments they showed Tessla Motors’ robots retooling themselves, Adept’s robots stuffing boxes with packaged lettuce and also assembling Braun shavers, watched ReThink Robots slowly pick and place an item, saw Aethon’s tugs in action in hospital corridors and had a brief glimpse of InTouch Health’s RP-VITA remote presence medical robot and a more descriptive view of the VGo Communications VGo robot at school and for home care. In the process the reporter, Steve Kroft, discussed a new definition of robots and robotics in sharp disagreement from the definitions posed by the International Federation of Robots:

Steve Kroft said, “The broad universal definition is a machine that can perform the job of a human. The machine can be mobile or stationary, hardware or software.”

This is different than the robotic industry’s most recent tentative definition of service robots which, in short, says the following:

A robot is an actuated mechanism programmable in two or more axes with a degree of autonomy, moving within its environment, to perform intended tasks. Autonomy in this context means the ability to perform intended tasks based on current state and sensing, without human intervention.

A robot has to have at least two degrees of freedom plus autonomy. A fully autonous car (2 degrees of freedom (DoF); steering and transmission) would qualify for a mobile robot as would 3D printers. But a washing machine (1 axis; 1 DoF), airline or other kiosk, or adaptive cruise control (all which could be considered as 1 DoF) would not fall under the category of robots. Thus Kroft artfully crafted his own definition to fit what he and his camera crews saw as “robotic.”

Regarding jobs and robots, Kroft relied on the comments of two MIT professors (Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee) who jointly wrote a book entitled “Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy” in which they attempt to answer:

• Why has median income stopped rising in the US?
• Why is the share of population that is working falling so rapidly?
• Why are our economy and society becoming more unequal?

A popular explanation is that the root cause underlying these symptoms is technological stagnation — a slowdown in the kinds of ideas and inventions that bring progress and prosperity. But the two authors suggest a very different explanation. They show that there’s been no stagnation in technology — in fact, the digital revolution is accelerating at an exponential rate. They say in the 60 Minutes interview:

Technology is always creating jobs. It’s always destroying jobs. But right now the pace is accelerating. It’s faster we think than ever before in history. So as a consequence, we are not creating jobs at the same pace that we need to.

The changes are coming so quickly it’s been difficult for workers to retrain themselves and for entrepreneurs to figure out where the next opportunities may be.

The catalyst is computer learning or artificial intelligence — the ability to feed massive amounts of data into supercomputers and program them to teach themselves and improve their performance. It’s how Apple was able to create Siri, the iPhone robot, and Google its self-driving car.

We now have robots gathering intelligence and fighting wars, and robot computers trading stocks on Wall Street.

It’s all part of a massive high tech industry that’s contributed enormous productivity and wealth to the American economy but surprisingly little in the way of employment. We absolutely are creating new jobs, new companies, and entirely new industries these days. The scale and the pace of creation is astonishing.

What these companies are not doing, though, is hiring a ton of people to help them with their work. Because they don’t need that many people to work in these incredibly large and influential companies. To make that concrete, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google are now all public companies. Combined, they have something close to $1 trillion in market capitalization. Together, the four of them employ fewer than 150,000 people, and that’s less than the number of new entrants into the American workforce every month and the number of employees that work for GE.

I’d love to open this up as a discussion because the IFR’s definition, still tentative as far as I know, doesn’t cover the growing marketplace of service robot-like devices that perform human tasks. CBS News 60 Minutes did this with their new definition and with their report.

The producers at CBS News 60 Minutes also provided additional web and video extras that you are sure to find of interest:

• The actual segment that appeared on TV
• The transcript of the segment
• The Robot Waltz: An Appreciation (a video of the robots that they photographed for the segment)
• An extended interview with John Dulchinos, CEO of Adept, about how technology is leveling the manufacturing playing field
• An extended interview with Rodney Brooks, CEO of ReThink Robotics, on the same subject

VGo Communications wins infringement lawsuit brought on by InTouch Health and also initiates a patent reexamination of four other InTouch patents.

InTouch Health, a company that has been providing remote presence services to the medical community for the past decade contacted VGo and suggested that they agree to a licensing agreement of InTouch patents. A suit followed and, in a Los Angeles Federal District courtroom yesterday, a jury found that VGo Communications did not infringe.

VGo requested that the US Patent Office re-examine four patents held by InTouch. VGo provided supporting documents on why those patents were invalid. To date, the US Patent Office has ruled on three of the re-examination requests and has rejected all of the claims within those patents previously granted to InTouch. The fourth patent is still in the re-examination process. This is just the beginning of what appears to be an ongoing round of claims and counter claims and appeals leading off to a decision – instead of by a jury – by patent experts at the Appeals Court.

In rhetoric typical of the best political spin doctor, Peter Vicars, CEO of VGo Communication said, “InTouch Health has been taking advantage of an overworked patent system in order to secure invalid patents that they then use to bleed competitors with frivolous lawsuits. New companies are producing competitive products at prices significantly less than what InTouch charges so InTouch is using teams of lawyers to maintain their exorbitant prices.”

Rhetoric aside, VGo’s low-cost two-way audio video communications combined with remote controlled mobility enables nurses, doctors and social workers to check on patients without having to be physically present. They feel better cared for and appreciate the extra effort. Recovery times are quicker and re-admissions are reduced. More time for the healthcare worker and lower costs for the healthcare organization.

The entry into the healthcare marketplace by VGo – a marketplace nurtured and developed by InTouch over the past decade – appears to be the root cause of the suit. InTouch trail-blazed the products, the FDA clearances, the marketplace and they want to protect their turf.

At a recent conference on remote presence telemedicine the most enlightening thing I saw was four hours of tightly-packed presentations by critical care doctors and hospital administrators, all users of InTouch Health’s remote presence robots, all portraying different aspects of why remote presence in health care is relevant, is saving lives and is necessary today and why it will continue to be in the future. InTouch has created a market that didn’t exist with products that weren’t being used in the way they are now. Certainly on a personal note one would think that there is room for more companies to assist in this very noble work.

But this is where patents kick in to protect that investment in market and product development which InTouch did. In fact, patents protect the holder for 17 years. Thus the courts decision is a bigger subject than just InTouch vs. VGo.

There has been a lot of gossip and more serious discussion within the healthcare devices industry about patents, their use in marketing strategy, their hindering product development, and their true value as intellectual property (IP).

Within the robotics healthcare community, much of that gossip has been focused on Intuitive Surgical and their da Vinci Surgical System. From the beginning, when Intuitive spun out from Stanford and SRI, they immediately had a legal battle with Computer Motion, the inventor of a similar system called Zeus. Since that time Intuitive has regularly contacted competitors to either get them to cease operations or license their patents. Many felt that this thwarted development of competing or better systems than the da Vinci. They have suggested that Intuitive Surgical has made a strategy of amassing large numbers of patents to try to protect their product and market share.

This is the essence of the arguments that people have used against Intuitive Surgical for the past 10 years. Except that no company has asked the Patent Office to reexamine their patents… yet.

In their suit with Computer Motion a decade ago, Intuitive won. But shortly thereafter, Computer Motion won their counter-suit. Stalemate. The two companies met outside of court and agreed to merge, shut down the Zeus operation, pay off the owners of Computer Motion with a small cash amount and 30% of Intuitive Surgical stock – a company that today has a net work of close to $21 billion. Thus the consequences of these patent battles are significant.

Yulan Wang, the founder of Computer Motion, moved on after the acquisition [of Computer Motion by Intuitive Surgical] to found InTouch Health, the very same company that just lost their battle with VGo.

New systems have proliferated in remote presence and robotic-assisted non-invasive surgeries but, in the case of surgical systems, none have yet to make it to market. RAVEN and SPRINT are two such systems presently in the news with reviews indicating that they are viable competitors to the da Vinci system.

The Raven operating system is helping the open-source community advance the state of the art in surgical robotics. In a joint venture between the University of Washington and UC Santa Cruz, the National Science Foundation funded the development of seven identical Raven II surgical robots. Each system has a two-armed surgical robot, a guiding video camera, and a surgeon-interface system built on top of ROS.These surgical robots are linked via the Internet so researchers can easily share new surgical robotics research and developments. Five Raven II robots have been given to major medical facilities at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Nebraska, UC Berkeley, and UCLA.

“SPRINT” is an EU-developed master-slave teleoperated robotic platform designed for bimanual interventions by means of a single access port. The system is composed by two main arms, a stereoscopic-camera, and additional devices, e.g. retractor or other assistive instruments that can be inserted through a central tube left free in the access port after the introduction. The surgeon console is composed of two master manipulators, a foot-switch and a 3D full-HD display.

Single-port surgical system by Intuitive Surgical.

Intuitive Surgical has recently announced their single-port surgical system, a competing concept to the SPRINT system. One can see another patent battle coming.

In the early years of automobile development, a group owned the rights to a two-cycle gasoline engine patent. By controlling this patent, they were able to monopolize the industry and force car manufacturers to adhere to their demands or risk a lawsuit. In 1911, independent automaker Henry Ford won a challenge to the patent. The result was that the patent became virtually worthless and a new association – which would eventually become the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association – was formed. The new association instituted a cross-licensing agreement among all U.S. auto manufacturers: although each company would develop technology and file patents, those patents were shared openly and without the exchange of money between all the manufacturers. By the time the U.S. entered WWII, 92 Ford patents and 515 patents from other companies were being shared between these manufacturers, without any exchange of money – or lawsuits. The best braking system was shared by all as was the best window wiper, and many, many other inventions passed freely from one car company to the others.

If something like this were to happen in the medical robotics arena, these wonderful new inventions would be available all over the world and patients, care-givers and healthcare systems would all share in the benefits and lives saved.

Perhaps there will be a time in the near future when new products like RAVEN and SPRINT will have a similar success as did VGo – maybe even without the costs and resources diverted from product development to fighting court cases.

Nevertheless, InTouch Health today filed an appeal of the verdict and also the patent reexaminations.

Last week I attended the 7th Annual Remote Presence Clinical Innovations Forum hosted by InTouch Health in Santa Barbara, CA, a two-day users conference disseminating the latest information regarding a wide range of telemedicine-related topics through presentations and workshops. The keynote address, by Yulun Wang, Chairman and CEO of InTouch Health and Colin Angle, Chairman, co-founder and CEO of iRobot, Remote Presence’s Future: From Enabling Access to Coordinating Care, provided the platform to announce and display InTouch Health’s new RP-VITA telepresence robot which autonomously brought itself onstage skillfully avoiding a few obstacles.

InTouch Health has installed their remote presence robots and portable devices in hospitals all over the world, and their devices are used more frequently year by year. In his keynote speech, Wang said they were in “500 hospitals and have 60,000 high acuity consults a year now, and growing at a nice clip.” This is up from 300 hospitals and 20,000 consults two years ago.

After the address I spent a few moments with Colin and asked him about iRobot’s role with InTouch and about their goals for their new mobility platform.

I saw and played with the new RP-VITA robots and they are truly slick. But the most enlightening thing I saw was four hours of tightly-packed presentations by critical care doctors and hospital administrators, all users of InTouch Health’s remote presence robots, and all portraying different aspects of why remote presence in health care is relevant, is saving lives and is necessary today and why it will continue to be in the future.

• A Trauma Telemedicine outfit from Halifax, Canada is providing pre-natal care in a Third World South American nation. They are using InTouch Health’s portable remote presence devices with a traveling nurse to assist in taking and discussing ultra sound exams and other pre-natal treatments with health care professionals in Canada for rural pregnant women.
• Two hospital systems (one in Florida and the other in Pennsylvania) are letting their patients see their doctors by telepresence at nearby local facilities using InTouch’s robots and other telepresence technology thereby making in unnecessary to drive to a big city university hospital.
• Virtual tutoring was presented – in which an amazing feat of software was shown – superimposing the consulting surgeon’s hands over the view of the actual surgery so that it could be seen and discussed by both the consulting and on-site physicians.
• Robots were used to provide admitting and initial diagnosis — one system actually has a 7 pm to 7 am robot shift. Nurses commented that by using the robots they could quickly get nighttime help and, because of the cameras and two-way dialogue capabilities, there has been no disagreement about what is seen by each of the various people involved.
• A survey at one hospital utilizing InTouch robots showed a reduction of length-of-stay by 1+ days, the average patient census was down by 1, and there was an increase in cases by 9.
• In a couple of presentations, a mobile robot was hooked up to the ballroom speaker system when the speaker had to be in two places at the same time. One doctor was a team physician for an Olympic soccer team in London; another missed a plane and was using his laptop at the airport to operate the robot on the stage.
• There was one testimonial after another — and that was before the announcement of the new RP-VITA robot!

iRobot’s Mobility Platform

InTouch Health’s RP-VITA Mobile Robot

Over the past 10 years, InTouch Health has been modifying it’s remote presence products to adapt to what health care professionals have needed. They gradually came to the conclusion that one methodology doesn’t fit all needs. Enabling a doctor to be in two places at once involves a whole series of products and systems. Currently they have three very capable solutions to those remote presence needs: a portable Xpress device for ambulances and remote locations unfriendly to mobile robots; a portable operating room station (Vantage and Lite); and the new mobile VITA robot. The swiveling wide-angle and zoom cameras and monitor and the two-way communication are integral parts of all of their products. The general purpose of each product is to easily perform real-time consults with patients and other physicians and health care providers through the use of secure interfaces supported by a speedy and secure network infrastructure.

As a pioneer in the field of health care telepresence, InTouch Health has had the unenviable task of keeping up with technological change while offering state-of-the-art remote presence robotic products. The release of this new RP-VITA robot and the partnership with iRobot, indicate how this new venture is paying off: the integration of new iPad apps integrated with the iRobot platform and an API making further clinical apps easily available, InTouch seems to have a viable forward plan.

However, competition is just around the corner. VGo Communication, Giraff Technologies and other telepresence robot companies are working with hospitals and municipalities to find uses their products can provide:

• Visiting Nurse & Hospice of Vermont and New Hampshire has leased four VGo robots for a pilot program. They will be on site to supplement nurses in homes of patients in the group’s hospice to allow medical specialists in other locations to have live consultations about the case.
• Another pilot program using VGos is under way with Children’s Hospital Boston where the hospital sends VGos home with kids after their operations so that doctors can check on their young patients once they’re home and talk with parents or caregivers about their care.
• Giraffs are being placed by visiting nurses where frequent contact is desired. Giraffs can also be used by family members for communication and video conferencing.

Certainly, the joint venture with iRobot has freed InTouch to focus more on what it does best and leave the driving to iRobot.

Travis Deyle, is a postdoc researcher at Duke and a recent PhD from GA Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering where he was a member of the Healthcare Robotics Lab and a frequent blogger at Hizook.com. Fortunate for us, he kept a file of 2011 venture funded robotic projects and turned it into an interesting chart:

Source: Travis Deyle, Hizook.com

This chart may not reflect all of the equity investment activity in the robotics market but it is a far cry from the $6.9 billion that went into 997 venture funded deals in web and Internet startup companies over the course of 2011. This chart also doesn’t mention the many acquisitions, strategic partnerships and mergers that occurred. The most recent is the acquisition of French Cybernetix by Technip, an oil resources and ROV service provider to the industry.

Deyle describes why he thinks VC funding for robotics is a tough nut to crack:

Robotics companies have large capital requirements for robot hardware, few potential acquirers, and almost no “Google-scale” breakout success stories (i.e., IPOs). One of the best known robotics companies, iRobot, has a market cap of just $700 million. This makes robotics a difficult sell to your typical VC firm.

Although these 14 companies represent just a sliver of the 100+ robotic startups that are getting funded in one way or another, they do offer insight into those that are of interest to the venture capital community. Of the companies listed in the chart, it is interesting to note that two are foreign and the biggest investment is for a robotic hair implant device for balding men.

VGo telepresence robot, Harvest Automation’s nursery robot, Liquid Robotics’ wave glider.

1. Restoration Robotics and their new ARTAS System provide image-guided technology for hair follicle harvesting. It’s a massive market, hence the large investment. They received US FDA clearance mid-2011 and treated their first patient in August, 2011.
2. Redzone Robotics was featured by Pres. Obama last year and, in addition to the 2011 funding, received an additional $8.5 million just a few days ago. Their wastewater systems – pipe inspection and cleaning robots – provide critical environmental assistance to municipalities, contractors and engineering firms. Again, a big investment for a big marketplace.
3. Liquid Robotics and their wave gliders have been much in the news. They presently have four wave gliders traveling different paths across the Pacific and making their data available to scientists and lay people worldwide. Their gliders are valuable additions to the arsenals of scientific and environmental agencies, fisheries, aquaculture, pollution detection and resource discovery companies as well as defense/security and law enforcement agencies. Hence the large investment.
4. Aldebaran Robotics, a French company, makes the Nao and newer Romeo robots which they sell to schools and for robotic soccer and other competitions to promote STEM education, a limited but growing marketplace, hence the midrange venture investment.
5. Medrobotics is a Carnegie Mellon spin-off focused on surgical applications using flexible snake-like robotic devices for minimally-invasive procedures. Like other medical start-ups, there is a long lead time for product refinement and FDA clearances. Medrobotics has received funding in almost every year since it’s inception in 2005.
6. Tibion Corporation, is a Sunnyvale, CA start-up, providing bionic legs for stroke rehabilitation. This form of robotic-assisted rehab therapy, therapy with the use of an exoskeleton, is a big step forward from the $300,000+ fixed-position machines previously used.
7. MakerBot Industries, the 3-D printer maker for the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) crowd, and featured at Maker Faires held all over the country to mammoth and enthusiastic crowds, services the DIY, prototyping, small run, and hobby communities while more expensive 3-D printers support the additive manufacturing sector. The Maker Faire Bay Area DIY innovation festival will be held in May in San Mateo, CA.
8. Harvest Automation has a lot of good things going for it: (1) many of it’s investors are the very same ag businesses that will be buyers of the robots, (2) although focused on nursery automation to begin their business, they are poised to broaden their scope into many other facets of the ag industry, and (3) the key players are experienced in the business of robotics.
9. Orbotix is the developer of the sphero smartphone-controlled robotic ball. The ball has no buttons, no battery box, no socket or cord for a charger (although it does have a cup-like charging dock). Shake it and it glows; put it on the floor and direct it anywhere with your iPhone. It’s a Bluetooth-based, wirelessly-charged device first shown at the 2011 CES in Las Vegas. 
10. ThinkLabs is an Indian education company focused on science and technology. It uses simple robots, sensor enhanced devices, and robot competitions to provide hands-on inspiration for students taking their courses.
11. Precise Path Robotics began as an entity to participate in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and has migrated it’s navigation system into robotic lawn mowing and other robotic devices to provide maintenance and conditioning robots for the golf course market.
12. VGo Communications has thus far produced 2,000 telepresence robots and plans to lower the cost to near $2,000 in their next production run. You may have seen the ABC News stories about the high school student who couldn’t leave home but nevertheless, through the use of the VGo, attended the local high school, piloting his VGo from class to class and up and down the school elevator.
13. Aethon is a Pittsburgh, PA based mobile robot company that makes robotic carts and tugs for the hospital industry… tugs to pickup and deliver food, medicine, waste materials and general supplies. The company began in 2001 and has had many rounds of financing. This round of $1.74 million was less than the $2.5 million targeted.
14. CyPhy Works, a maker of small unmanned flying robots used to inspect bridges and other public infrastructure, has also received federal grants and research awards to develop its technology for both commercial, governmental and defense clients.

Source: Travis Deyle, Hizook.com

This chart may not reflect all of the equity investment activity in the robotics market but it is a far cry from the $6.9 billion that went into 997 venture funded deals in web and Internet startup companies over the course of 2011. This chart also doesn’t mention the many acquisitions, strategic partnerships and mergers that occurred. The most recent is the acquisition of French Cybernetix by Technip, an oil resources and ROV service provider to the industry.

Deyle describes why he thinks VC funding for robotics is a tough nut to crack:

Robotics companies have large capital requirements for robot hardware, few potential acquirers, and almost no “Google-scale” breakout success stories (i.e., IPOs). One of the best known robotics companies, iRobot, has a market cap of just $700 million. This makes robotics a difficult sell to your typical VC firm.

Although these 14 companies represent just a sliver of the 100+ robotic startups that are getting funded in one way or another, they do offer insight into those that are of interest to the venture capital community. Of the companies listed in the chart, it is interesting to note that two are foreign and the biggest investment is for a robotic hair implant device for balding men.

VGo telepresence robot, Harvest Automation’s nursery robot, Liquid Robotics’ wave glider.

1. Restoration Robotics and their new ARTAS System provide image-guided technology for hair follicle harvesting. It’s a massive market, hence the large investment. They received US FDA clearance mid-2011 and treated their first patient in August, 2011.
2. Redzone Robotics was featured by Pres. Obama last year and, in addition to the 2011 funding, received an additional $8.5 million just a few days ago. Their wastewater systems – pipe inspection and cleaning robots – provide critical environmental assistance to municipalities, contractors and engineering firms. Again, a big investment for a big marketplace.
3. Liquid Robotics and their wave gliders have been much in the news. They presently have four wave gliders traveling different paths across the Pacific and making their data available to scientists and lay people worldwide. Their gliders are valuable additions to the arsenals of scientific and environmental agencies, fisheries, aquaculture, pollution detection and resource discovery companies as well as defense/security and law enforcement agencies. Hence the large investment.
4. Aldebaran Robotics, a French company, makes the Nao and newer Romeo robots which they sell to schools and for robotic soccer and other competitions to promote STEM education, a limited but growing marketplace, hence the midrange venture investment.
5. Medrobotics is a Carnegie Mellon spin-off focused on surgical applications using flexible snake-like robotic devices for minimally-invasive procedures. Like other medical start-ups, there is a long lead time for product refinement and FDA clearances. Medrobotics has received funding in almost every year since it’s inception in 2005.
6. Tibion Corporation, is a Sunnyvale, CA start-up, providing bionic legs for stroke rehabilitation. This form of robotic-assisted rehab therapy, therapy with the use of an exoskeleton, is a big step forward from the $300,000+ fixed-position machines previously used.
7. MakerBot Industries, the 3-D printer maker for the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) crowd, and featured at Maker Faires held all over the country to mammoth and enthusiastic crowds, services the DIY, prototyping, small run, and hobby communities while more expensive 3-D printers support the additive manufacturing sector. The Maker Faire Bay Area DIY innovation festival will be held in May in San Mateo, CA.
8. Harvest Automation has a lot of good things going for it: (1) many of it’s investors are the very same ag businesses that will be buyers of the robots, (2) although focused on nursery automation to begin their business, they are poised to broaden their scope into many other facets of the ag industry, and (3) the key players are experienced in the business of robotics.
9. Orbotix is the developer of the sphero smartphone-controlled robotic ball. The ball has no buttons, no battery box, no socket or cord for a charger (although it does have a cup-like charging dock). Shake it and it glows; put it on the floor and direct it anywhere with your iPhone. It’s a Bluetooth-based, wirelessly-charged device first shown at the 2011 CES in Las Vegas.
10. ThinkLabs is an Indian education company focused on science and technology. It uses simple robots, sensor enhanced devices, and robot competitions to provide hands-on inspiration for students taking their courses.
11. Precise Path Robotics began as an entity to participate in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and has migrated it’s navigation system into robotic lawn mowing and other robotic devices to provide maintenance and conditioning robots for the golf course market.
12. VGo Communications has thus far produced 2,000 telepresence robots and plans to lower the cost to near $2,000 in their next production run. You may have seen the ABC News stories about the high school student who couldn’t leave home but nevertheless, through the use of the VGo, attended the local high school, piloting his VGo from class to class and up and down the school elevator.
13. Aethon is a Pittsburgh, PA based mobile robot company that makes robotic carts and tugs for the hospital industry… tugs to pickup and deliver food, medicine, waste materials and general supplies. The company began in 2001 and has had many rounds of financing. This round of $1.74 million was less than the $2.5 million targeted.

1. CyPhy Works, a maker of small unmanned flying robots used to inspect bridges and other public infrastructure, has also received federal grants and research awards to develop its technology for both commercial, governmental and defense clients.