IDG, Walden lead $65m round for US-China AI start-up
IDG Capital Partners and Walden International have led a $65 million Series B funding round for US and China-based artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics company Rokid.
According to a statement, the investment brings the company's total funding to $85 million following a Series A round in 2015. The capital will be used to develop the company's home robotics offerings and improve customer experience in China and the US, where a product roll-out is planned for the first quarter of 2017.
It will also be applied to expanding staff, which currently include about 90 people across offices in Beijing, Hangzhou and San Francisco. This effort will emphasize positions in research, hardware/software development, design and user experience.
Rokid was founded in 2014 and officially launched in China the following year. It partnered with Alibaba Group and began marketing in the country in April this year. Its flagship product, known as Rokid, is a consumer-focused device that manages housekeeping tasks such as controlling light, temperature and music through various voice recognition and visual interaction sensors.
The device also provides information on demand, including calendar schedules and weather forecasts. It uses AI and deep learning technologies to adapt to the personality and needs of individual users through two-way verbal exchanges. Most of the hardware is independently designed or highly customized.
China's growing robotics industry has been hampered in industrial fields by the availability of cheap labor but bolstered in consumer segments by the country's rising middle class. Rokid has been touted as the first Chinese family robot targeting this space, with the unit having demonstrated operability in Mandarin.
Recent venture investment in the sector has largely focused on companies targeting Western and Japanese markets. This activity includes Alibaba and Foxconn Technology committing $236 million to Softbank Robotics, maker of the humanoid servant Pepper. Japan's Dentsu Ventures, meanwhile, has invested $3 million in US family robot start-up Jibo.
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