 "MIT’s ‘social robot’ Jibo gets $16 million funding to charm Asia")
Silicon Valley-based Fenox Venture Capital, an active investor in Asian start-ups, has confirmed to Tech in Asia that it led a $16 million series A extension round for Jibo, the MIT-born social robot. Japanese video game, slot machine and resort conglomerate Sega Sammy Holdings and IT services giant CAC Holdings joined the round as Fenox limited partners (LPs). Both will work with Jibo to facilitate the robot’s Asian expansion plans via sales and marketing channels.
Sega and CAC aren’t the first Asian investors to pour money into the so-called ‘family robot’. Back in August, Acer (Taiwan), Dentsu Ventures (Japan), KDDI (Japan), LG UPlus (Korea) and NetPosa (China) added an initial $11 million to the gadget’s $25 million series A financing – in which Samsung (Korea) was also an investor. According to Jibo’s PR firm, this second extension round brings total funding to $60 million.
Jibo is the brainchild of Cynthia Breazeal (pictured above), an MIT professor and social robotics pioneer, and burst onto the robotics scene in 2014 when it came out of stealth for an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. It attracted more than $3.7 million from backers on a $100,000 goal.
