April 5, 2012 - Overseas startup AI Robotics Company Dyna Robotics announced that it has closed a $23.5 million (note: RMB 171 million at current exchange rates) seed round co-led by CRV and First Round Capital.Financingwhich plans to use the funds to develop AI robots (arms) that specialize in solving a single task.The initial goal of the corresponding robot arm is to perform folding of clothes and cutting of vegetables in order to lay the foundation for future general-purpose robots.
The corresponding company was reportedly co-founded by Lindon Gao, York Yang and Jason Ma, who was a research scientist at DeepMind, while Lindon Gao and York Yang co-founded Caper in 2016, which specializes in the development of AI-enabled automated checkout devices and related software and was acquired by Instacart in 2021 for $300 million (Rs 25 crore at current exchange rates). The company focused on developing AI-enabled automated checkout devices and related software, and was acquired by Instacart in 2021 for $350 million (roughly Rs. 2.55 billion at current exchange rates). Subsequently, the three founders partnered to form Dyna Robotics.
According to reports, this Dyna Robotics Designed to create robots that specialize in dangerous, boring, dirty tasksWhile the company initially plans to develop a series of robots "focused on solving a specific task," its ultimate goal is to create a general-purpose, body-conforming AI robot. The company's robots are currently in small-scale test production and are expected to be officially unveiled in a few months.
But Bill Trenchard, a partner at investor First Round Capital, thinks the challenge Dyna faces now is cost. The company will likely need to invest millions of dollars in robotics research and development, and for now Dyna should quickly develop a range of robots and reduce the cost of building them.