EMERGING TECH
EMERGING TECH
EMERGING TECH
‘Autonomy as a service’ AI startup Brain Corp raises $114M
Proving once again that no jobs are safe from automation, San Diego startup Brain Corp. builds autonomous floor cleaning robots that can safely navigate store aisles without knocking anything over. Today, it announced that it’s one step closer to building an army of robot mops thanks to an impressive $114 million later-stage funding round.
The Series C round was led by the SoftBank Vision Fund and also included funding from existing investor Qualcomm Ventures. Brain Corp.’s new round brings its total funding to date to $125 million.
Founded in 2009, Brain Corp. does not consider itself to be a robotics company but rather an “autonomy as a service” company. The startup’s main product is BrainOS, an operating system that combines computer vision and AI with off-the-shelf hardware and sensors to give existing machines the ability to navigate their surroundings and make decisions. According to Brain Corp., BrainOS powers robots the same way Android powers smartphones.
The floor cleaning robots are the first commercial application for BrainOS, but the company said its self-driving technology can be used to build robots for a wide range of tasks that require careful navigation of cluttered environments. BrainsOS can also allow autonomous robots to safely operate in close proximity to people, and Brain Corp. Chief Executive Eugene Izhikevich said this capability has brought us close to a revolution in robotics.
“At Brain, we believe tomorrow’s robots will be intelligent autonomous machines that take care of us,” Izhikevich said in a statement. “Such robots will be as commonplace as computers and mobile phones are today.”
Izhikevich said that the company’s new funding will allow it to develop its AI further and tailor it to new types of commercial applications. Brain Corp. also has plans to port its BrainOS onto Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Mobile Platform, which will make it easier to implement the technology across a wide range of machines.
You can watch a video of Brain Corp.’s floor cleaning robots navigating through a grocery store:
Since you’re here …
… We’d like to tell you about our mission and how you can help us fulfill it. SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s business model is based on the intrinsic value of the content, not advertising. Unlike many online publications, we don’t have a paywall or run banner advertising, because we want to keep our journalism open, without influence or the need to chase traffic.The journalism, reporting and commentary on SiliconANGLE — along with live, unscripted video from our Silicon Valley studio and globe-trotting video teams at theCUBE — take a lot of hard work, time and money. Keeping the quality high requires the support of sponsors who are aligned with our vision of ad-free journalism content.
If you like the reporting, video interviews and other ad-free content here, please take a moment to check out a sample of the video content supported by our sponsors, tweet your support, and keep coming back to SiliconANGLE.
