MIT’s ‘social robot’ Jibo gets $16m funding to charm Asia

Silicon Valley-based Fenox Venture Capital, an active investor in Asian startups, has confirmed to Tech in Asia that it led a US$16 million series A extension round for Jibo, the MIT-born social robot. Japanese video game, slot machine, and resort conglomerate Sega Sammy Holdings and IT services giant CAC Holdings joined the round as Fenox limited partners (LPs). Both will work with Jibo to facilitate the robot’s Asian expansion plans via sales and marketing channels.

Sega and CAC aren’t the first Asian investors to pour money into the so-called “family robot.” Back in August, Acer (Taiwan), Dentsu Ventures (Japan), KDDI (Japan), LG UPlus (Korea), and NetPosa (China) added an initial US$11 million to the gadget’s US$25 million series A financing – in which Samsung (Korea) was also an investor. According to Jibo’s PR firm, this second extension round brings total funding to US$60 million.

Jibo is the brainchild of Cynthia Breazeal (pictured above), an MIT professor and social robotics pioneer, and burst onto the robotics scene in 2014 when it came out of stealth for an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. It attracted more than US$3.7 million from backers on a US$100,000 goal.

The robot can be used as a personal assistant, digital companion, and cameraman. It leverages artificial intelligence to learn about an individual’s daily habits and preferences. Jibo also helps keep you from staring into your smartphone screen all day by audibly communicating alerts and reminders. Its 360-degree microphone can pick up voice commands from across the room and high-resolution cameras allow Jibo to capture pictures and video. The cameras also allow the robot to track faces, so it can follow individuals as they move around to create a more personal, attentive feeling.

More emotional than Pepper

Perhaps the coolest Jibo feature, however, is how well it perceives and conveys emotion despite a minimalist form factor. Japan is well-known for its preference for humanoid robots – take Pepper, SoftBank’s “emotional” robot, for example. Though Jibo sits on a tabletop and has just one “eye” on its round display, its demo video made me feel more warm and fuzzy than any of my in-person interactions with Pepper. See the video below to get an idea of what I’m talking about:

“[Jibo] wants to go big in Asia, as evidenced by the the local partnerships it’s creating,” Anis Uzzaman, general partner and CEO at Fenox, tells Tech in Asia. “In Japan, it wants to be a Japanese robot. Sega knows how to create unique characters and stories, and they will be able to help make Jibo truly Japanese, not just an American robot in Japan.”

Uzzaman, who will also join the Jibo board, emphasizes that robot will be localized for Asian markets, not simply translated. It will be programmed with cultural nuance, behaviors, postures, and mannerisms. “Jibo will add ‘san’ after your name” in Japan, he adds. It will even greet and part with a bow.

Jibo is set for a consumer release in the US in 2016, but it’s unclear when the robot will become available in Asia. The startup is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.