In a first, robotics startup Emotix raises $2 million from IDG Ventures and YourNest

Emotix, the Mumbai-based robotics startup has raised its first round of funding worth $2 million from investors led by IDG Ventures India and YourNest. The funding round also included its existing investor Mr. Keshav Murugesh, Group CEO of WNS Global Services.

The country's first robotics startup has launched Miko, which it claims is India’s first companion robot for children has received a favourable response within the first few months of its launch. Miko is capable of engaging, educating, and entertaining a child. The Emotix team spent almost two years perfecting the product and aims to launch more products in this space.

The founders Sneh Rajkumar Vaswani, Prashant Iyengar and Chintan Raikar have been building robots from their student days, but seeing an unaddressed market need with room for impact, the trio co-founded Emotix in 2014.

Sneh Rajkumar Vaswani, Co-Founder & CEO of Emotix in a press statement said that Miko is an outcome of extensive research throughout the country, particularly to identify the unmet needs of parents, of children, their expectations, that translated into all its features that come bundled with the robot.

He said the latest funds will propel the company towards further research and development, and accelerate launch of new products and facilitate its foray into global markets.

"The recent investment from funds advised by IDG Ventures India and YourNest is a great validation of efforts by the team. Besides a consistent growth rate in sales, we surpass some of the best AI conversational stacks globally by clocking 37 times the average session duration with our user as compared to industry peers."

Sudhir Sethi, Founder and Managing General Partner of IDG Ventures India in the press statement said,

"In our view, emotixTM is poised to record stellar growth. emotixTM has identified a huge market and created a niche through its pipeline of unique offerings based on cutting edge innovation in robotics, artificial intelligence and psychology. It’s not only a seamless demonstration of filling gaps in the life of the consumer but also an attempt to revolutionise man-machine interaction. These considerations and the attractive growth potential excited us to invest in emotixTM."

A report by Research and Markets estimates that the global industrial robotics market stood at $28.22 billion in 2014 and is forecast to reach $41.18 billion by 2020. The consumer robotics market is also large and growing, with giants like Alphabet, Samsung, Rethink Robotics, SoftBank Robotics and Toyota expressing a keen interest in this space.

There is great interest in home assistants like Google Home, Alexa, and Apple’s upcoming device, HomePod.