Market trends and business perspectives
Simbe Robotics, which specializes in robotics and artificial intelligence for retail, has completed two separate funding deals.
One was a Series A equity financing round, and the other was an inventory financing agreement with SoftBank Robotics.
Simbe says the financing will allow the company to increase efficiencies in production and deployment of its Tally robot. [Read more…] about Simbe Robotics raises $26 million in Series A funding round
The autonomous driving business which General Motors acquired three years ago, Cruise, has raised more than $1 billion in its latest funding round, bringing total capital raised to approximately $7 billion.
Cruise says the equity investment of $1.15 billion is from a group comprising institutional investors, including funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, and existing partners GM, SoftBank Vision Fund and Honda.
Dan Ammann, Cruise CEO, says: “Developing and deploying self-driving vehicles at massive scale is the engineering challenge of our generation.
[Read more…] about GM’s autonomous driving business Cruise raises another $1.15 billionTaxi-sharing app maker Uber has been promised $1 billion in investment from companies including Toyota, Denso, and SoftBank Vision Fund.
The new funds will help accelerate the development and commercialization of its ridesharing services, says Uber in a statement.
Under the terms, Toyota and Denso will together invest $667 million and SVF will invest $333 million, valuing the new “Uber Advanced Technologies Group” entity at $7.25 billion on a post-money basis. [Read more…] about Toyota, Denso, and SoftBank pledge another $1 billion investment for Uber
Toyota and SoftBank Corp. have completed investment in their joint venture, MONET Technologies Inc., and full-scale operations have begun.
MONET has three main business domains: on-demand mobility services; data-analysis services; and Autono-MaaS (Mobility as a Service). The joint venture will first roll out on-demand mobility services.
On-demand transportation through regional partnerships and corporate shuttles will begin in fiscal year 2018 through cooperation with local public agencies and private companies.
[Read more…] about Toyota and SoftBank joint venture starts operations
Kyocera will participate in a self-driving bus test project organized by the Mobility Innovation Consortium, an organization to promote autonomous driving led by East Japan Railway Company.
Other corporations participating in the test project will include Advanced Smart Mobility Company, Aichi Steel Corporation, SoftBank, Nippon Signal Company, and NEC Corporation.
Project tests, which will occur between December 2018 and March 2019, are designated to evaluate self-driving technologies for bus transit applications, including automated lane-maintenance control, speed control, parking assist, and alternating passage tests on JR East’s Bus Rapid Transit lines. [Read more…] about Kyocera to participate in self-driving bus test in Japan involving several other companies
Brain Corp, an AI company specialising in the development of self-driving technology for robots, has entered the Japanese robotics market in partnership with SoftBank Robotics Corp.
Together, the two companies will address gaps in Japan’s commercial cleaning workforce with SoftBank Robotics’ robotic floor scrubber, powered by BrainOS.
The first SoftBank Robotics’ product integrated with Brain’s autonomous navigation technology will be the ICE RS26 floor scrubber.
[Read more…] about Brain Corp and SoftBank Robotics enter Japan’s commercial cleaning market
Toyota Motor Corporation and SoftBank Corp. have agreed to form a strategic partnership to create new mobility services, and plan to establish a joint venture company, MONET Technologies Corporation, before the end of the 2018 fiscal year (April 2019).
MONET will provide coordination between Toyota’s Mobility Services Platform, Toyota’s information infrastructure for connected vehicles, and SoftBank’s Internet of Things Platform, which was built to create new value from the collection and analysis of data acquired from smartphones and sensor devices.
By utilising a wide range of different forms of data related to automotive and human mobility on both platforms, MONET is aiming to optimise supply and demand in transportation and, ultimately, to launch Mobility-as-a-Service businesses capable of resolving social mobility issues and creating new value.
[Read more…] about Toyota and SoftBank to set up new mobility services joint venture
SoftBank is considering investing around $750 million in Zume, according to the Economic Times.
Zume has deloped a pizza delivery system in which robots make pizzas inside trucks while on the road. (See video below.)
The trucks are said to be proprietary and Zume is positioning itself as an automation platform for the food industry. [Read more…] about SoftBank considering investing $750 million in Zume
SoftBank is planning to invest more than $2 billion into General Motors’ self-driving vehicle technology unit, Cruise Automation.
Cruise Automation is a startup company acquired by General Motors two years ago.
In some ways, this is a surprise move by SoftBank. The Japanese telecommunications giant has previously invested in other sectors of the robotics market. [Read more…] about SoftBank to invest more than $2 billion into General Motors’ self-driving cars unit Cruise Automation
SoftBank Robotics Europe has appointed Jacky’s Business Solutions as its first reseller in the UAE for its Pepper robot.
Pepper is the first humanoid robot created to interact with humans. It is equipped with features and a high-level interface for proactively communicating with those around it, using the latest advances in voice and face recognition.
To support the relationship, Jacky’s will invest in expanding its team of software and support engineers to include programmers who can code Pepper to suit the diverse applications across industries and departments. [Read more…] about SoftBank appoints new partner to resell Pepper humanoid robots
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