Six months after resigning from the self-driving car company amidst a crisis, Vogt secured a valuation of $550 million for a new company that intends to sell robots for household chores such as house cleaning
According to multiple sources, Kyle Vogt, who tendered his resignation as CEO of the troubled automobile company Cruise six months ago, has successfully secured $150 million in funding for a novel robotics venture.
Two sources reported that the post-money valuation of the nascent enterprise, which was presented to investors as The Bot Company, is $550 million. According to four sources, significant investors in the round include Spark Capital and Nat Friedman, the former CEO of GitHub and current manager of a sizable AI-focused fund.
Vogt, who has two billion-dollar departures from cofounding services (live streaming service (Twitch, 2014; Cruise, 2016; Amazon, 2016), and Paril Jain, a longtime Tesla AI employee, cofounded the new company with Luke Holoubek, a former Cruise engineer and technical advisor, and Vogt.
Recently, Jain served as a team supervisor for the group responsible for developing the autopilot system for Tesla vehicles.
As of the time of publication, Spark and Friedman have yet to respond to Vogt’s request for comment.
According to six sources, the startup is attempting to develop hardware and software for in-home robotics capable of performing tasks such as laundry and housekeeping.
As per a source with direct knowledge, the organization is contemplating the development of human-shaped automata, among other alternatives.
Three individuals claim that the business concept entails selling the robots directly to consumers and allowing users to influence the robot’s features and functionalities by submitting requests via a messaging server similar to Discord.
According to two sources, this is subject to change, as the months-old company has yet to begin generating revenue and has presented investors primarily with a conceptual vision.
However, industry observers contend that the founders’ experience creating autonomous vehicles at Cruise and Tesla directly applies to the technical difficulty that standalone robots present.
By addressing automation, Vogt is venturing into an industry that has recently experienced a substantial surge in investment activity. Venture capitalists are placing more outstanding bets that the performance enhancements that artificial intelligence has experienced over the past two years in terms of generating text, images, videos, and audio will be implemented in machines in the physical world.
The greatest benefactor thus far is Figure AI, which secured a $2.6 billion valuation the following month after announcing a partnership with BMW in January and receiving investments from Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and Jeff Bezos, among others.
A recent interview at company offices noted that even though none of its humanoid robots have been deployed and can still not walk reliably, cofounder Brett Adcock anticipated that his robots would be operational at a BMW auto factory within twelve to eighteen months.
A growing number of companies are focusing on various aspects of technology. At the same time, venture capitalists wager on which component of the robot technology stack will be the most profitable, even though the robotics industry is still in its infancy. Organizations such as Figure and 1X, which secured $100 million in January funding, are developing general-purpose software and hardware.
Physical Intelligence (which raised $70 million in March) and Skild (which, according to The Information, is negotiating for $300 million) concentrate solely on software. Collaborative Robotics, a company that received $100 million in funding last month, is creating more miniature, non-humanoid robots.
Like Vogt’s consumer-oriented venture, Agility Robotics, which focuses on industrial use cases, is an example of a vertical approach.
Vogt has long been interested in robotics, and he sees the launch of this business as a new beginning. He competed in the Kansas elementary school robot combat competition program BattleBots.
His MIT internship was at iRobot, the manufacturer of the Roomba. Vox reported joining Twitch after proposing to the other cofounders via live-streaming camera. He departed in 2013 to found Cruise, where he served as CEO for two terms: initially before the acquisition and lastly in 2021.
Under the leadership of Vogt, Cruise expanded its autonomous vehicle operations rapidly to compete with Alphabet subsidiary Waymo and other rivals. Critics were enraged until October 2023, when a Cruise vehicle “dragged” a pedestrian for 20 feet, resulting in her critical condition and transportation to the emergency room.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles revoked Cruise’s licenses in the following weeks; the company voluntarily suspended operations in Arizona and Texas; and GM ceased production of a Cruise autonomous vehicle that had been in development for several years.
Vogt tendered his resignation from his position in November. A California magistrate has since determined that Cruise “misled” a state regulatory agency regarding the October incident.
Cruise revealed the findings of an independent investigation by the law firm Quinn Emanuel in January, which found that “poor leadership” and “a fundamental misunderstanding of Cruise’s obligations of transparency and accountability to the government and the public” contributed to the “failings” of the company. The organization resumed its activities in Arizona on Monday, employing a human pilot to oversee safety in each vehicle.
