As Avidbots cranks up its sales and production, revenue could reach $20 million this year. Here are 2 other companies hoping to cash in on commercial cleaning robots: by amyfeldman
shows off what the company’s 1,050-pound cleaning robot, Neo, can do. Inside an enclosure made of thousands of giant white, blue and yellow Lego bricks at the company’s factory in Kitchener, Ontario, the robot goes through a quality assurance test, turning corners and scrubbing the floor as it goes. Lights along the bottom of the machine glow blue as it moves autonomously, then turn fuchsia as it stops to remap its route, aided by artificial intelligence.
The economics are already in their favor in many developed countries. Neo costs around $50,000 , runs for around four hours on a single charge and should last five years. A typical service plan costs some $500 per month, adding another $6,000 a year. By contrast, a commercial-grade rider-style scrubber that a laborer would operate costs roughly $15,000 up front. That means the additional cost of a cleaning robot is some $35,000 before accounting for maintenance.
The two met as freshmen in the robotics program at Canada’s elite University of Waterloo in 2006. Almost immediately, they started talking about their dreams of a robot-enhanced future. “I wanted to build robots and see them in the real world,” Molina says. “That’s how I got together with Faizan.” Autonomous vehicles and robotic food-startups have captured the public's imagination, but cleaning robots have enormous, if unsexy, potential.
Not long after they returned to the U.S. from China, they met Rohit Sharma, a general partner at True Ventures, who told them flat-out: You’re taking the wrong approach and need to build the machines from scratch. “I don’t think they were thrilled by that response,” says Sharma, who passed on the deal then but invested two years later.
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