Skip to Content
Uncategorized

Robot Ramp-Up

Venture Capital
March 1, 2001

Over the past two decades, a good way to scare away venture capital was to tell investors you wanted to build robots. Earlier robotics companies typically flopped when it became clear the computational power didn’t exist to drive the fine sensory and motor capabilities required of even the simplest devices. But with companies now producing robots that do things like paint ship hulls or remotely stroll the office, bankers at Chicago-based Olympic Cascade Financial believe the technology has finally caught up with the promise.

Cascade has established what it says is the first-ever venture-capital fund created exclusively for robotics. So far the fund, Robotic Ventures, has raised an initial $5 million from investors and identified a dozen potential recipients, all companies ready to bring robotic devices to market.

“You’re going to see a lot of robots,” promises Brian Friedman, co-director of the fund with Rodney Brooks, director of MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. “The revolution that people conceptualized in the 1970s and ’80s is now a reality in the year 2001.”

Friedman said the company Brooks co-founded, iRobot, will likely receive Robotic Ventures funds to refine and market products like its flagship iRobot-LE-an Internet-ready communications robot that can, among other things, roll around the house and check on the cat while you are on vacation. Other potential recipients include robotics companies serving the shipping-, oil- and gas-services industries.

If the fund proves profitable, Robotic Ventures plans to set up a second, larger fund that will focus on early-stage robotics companies.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language

A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.