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According to Bloomberg, the American robot company Misty has been acquired by Swiss robotics company Furhat, both of which have previously focused on the social robot track. Misty was founded in 2017 and raised $11.5 million in Series A funding. Furhat's acquisition has helped the commercial application of the Misty series of robots.
Social robot acquisitions are rare, but Furhat believes that the two companies are similar in technology and can complement each other in the hardware and software design of robots, and this acquisition meets the company's development needs. Furhat will retain the team of misty's operations supervisors, engineers, business developers, senior software development leaders and other teams, give full play to the advantages of misty's hardware development, combine the company's software development expertise, and integrate the technical characteristics of the robots of the two companies.
Misty's robots were small and pleasing-looking and were once popular at CES, and Furhat's robots were less expressive than Misty's. In response, Furhat claims to be focusing on the development of more human-specific social robots, focusing on robot applications in home and office environments.
First, having received 11.5 million yuan in financing, Misty released the open source code to expand commercial services
Misty is a subsidiary of robot toy maker Sphero. In 2017, Sphero co-founder Ian Bernstein took over the independence of its subsidiary, Ian Bernstein, as Misty's head of product. Sphero is trying to raise more money by spinning off companies to get social robots into homes and office apps faster. Misty, which later raised $11.5 million in Series A funding from Foundry and Venrock, undoubtedly has a solid foundation.
At the 2019 Microsoft Developers Conference, Misty's R&D director Ben Edwards demonstrated the Misty robot equipped with sensors, cameras and various computer vision technologies, using Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 and 410 chips and Qualcomm Snapdragon neural processing engine, with powerful hardware. Moreover, the robot released by Misty Company is small and exquisite, with vivid expressions and expressive arm activities, which has won the love of the public.
Edwards also said the company hopes that those who can write JavaScript can program robots without having to learn and build hardware. At the 2020 International Consumer Electronics Show, Misty released its Misty AS A Concierge template for its Misty II platform robot, open source, to help developers expand the robot's capabilities to accelerate the commercial adoption of the Misty series of robots, including marketing, elder care, front-desk welcome at hotels, museums and other venues.
▲Partial open source code released by Misty
Second, the acquisition of rare robots aims to develop social robots with more human personalities
Furhat saw the value of Misty. Furhat's robots now produce use animated projection technology to present faces similar to real people, but Furhat's team believes their robots need to add human personality. Furhat's acquisition is to make up for this shortcoming. The Misty series of robots is cute and approachable, which is exactly what Furhat's robots lack.
▲ Furhat's robot
▲ Misty's robot
Furhat announced that it will retain Misty's core staff in operations, engineering, business development and advanced software development, continuing to support the Misty Robotics brand and helping to develop and expand its product range. Samer Al Moubayed, CEO and co-founder of Furhat, believes misty's success in applying the world's top technology to a very cute robot is the success of Misty.
Acquisitions in the social robotics space are very rare, but they are only characteristic of the early stages of the industry. The combination of Furhat and Misty is no accident. Explaining the possibilities of the acquisition, Samer Al Moubayed argues that the technology is very similar, but Misty stands out in hardware and Furhat excels in software. If the functions of furhat and Misty robots are further integrated, the use of our robots can be explored and social robots closer to human personalities can be developed.
Third, facing the consumer market, robot research and development focuses on home and office
In 2017, Tim Enwall, founder and CEO of Google-owned smart home company Revolv, believed that robots entering homes and offices was an important vision for robot development, but he thought that hope would still take years to achieve. Today, Furhat believes that social service robots with human personalities are bound to become the core of the robot market in the coming years.
After Furhat's acquisition of Misty, it focused on retaining The Existing Achievements of Misty in the commercial environment of applying robots, and robot research and development has become more oriented to the consumer market. The Swedish robotics company is also backed by venture capital funds Balderton, LocalGlobe and Qualgro, demonstrating the market's affirmation of the direction of social robot research and development.
Conclusion: Furhat and Misty, social robots are more anthropomorphic
Furhat is optimistic about Misty's development of social robots, providing the startup with a gentler landing environment while patching up the shortcomings of the company's robots that lack human characteristics. In the future, social robots will further enter the business environment and develop more application functions that adapt to home and office environments.
With the widespread application of artificial intelligence technology, social robots will gradually play an important role in people's lives, and it must have the ability to complete some tasks that humans cannot complete. Prior to this, iRobot's sweeping robot Roomba implemented a one-click function, which can directly plan the cleaning route according to the user's living habits. Even so, it's still far from what science fiction has expected us for decades. Furhat and Misty are slowly opening the door to bring more technology to life.
Source: Bloomberg, TechCrunch