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‘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:
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