The company that brought you mind-controlled cat ears just raised $1m

Image credit: Yukai Engineering promo video.

Yukai Engineering, the company that made anime fans around the world jealous with its mind-controlled cat ears has partnered with the Advanced Telecommunication Research Institute International (ATR) and raised US$956,000 from its investment arm.

Yukai Engineering dreams of a day when there’s a robot in every household. It has been working on unique projects like family communication robot Bocco and palm-sized dancing Japanese idol robot iDoll. CEO Shunsuke Aoki says they have shipped a few thousand Boccos already.

ATR will provide its paralanguage processing system to Bocco. That means it will be able to better understand emotions not conveyed through language such as pitch, intonation, and speed. A spokesperson for ATR claims that its language processing system also considers vocal qualities like tone and attitude for more natural conversation not possible with other technology. The two companies will also work to further basic research in the area and develop a module to be used with other communication-based robots.

Yukai Engineering has already released over ten products but judges have been skeptical of its future at business competitions. Japan already has a number of emotion-reading robots like SoftBank’s Pepper or Gatebox, the holographic girlfriend.

This round of investment comes through ATR’s investment branch created in partnership with Nippon Venture Capital to monetize its research. If things go well, anime lovers may have a difficult choice to make in the future.

Converted from Japanese Yen. Rate: US$1 = JPY 104.72

Update on June 22 2016, 11:50am JST: Article was updated to include ATR’s comments on their language processing system.
Update on July 228 2016, 11:20am JST: Article was updated to include numbers on Boccos shipped.