Diligent Robotics today announced the close of a $10 million Series A round to expand its fleet of nurse assistant robots for hospitals.
Moxi is made to help reduce nurse workloads by doing things like collecting supplies, gathering soiled linens or delivering fresh ones, and comes to the market at a time when there’s a nurses of shortages. Help can also mean less exposure to disease for health care professionals sorely needed during the coronavirus pandemic.
Moxi was created by Diligent Robotics at University of Texas, Austin by CEO Dr. Andrea Thomaz, a roboticist and professor who previously ran the Georgia Tech Socially Intelligent Machines Lab.
“It’s a really good time to be working on this problem,” Thomaz told VentureBeat in a phone interview. “Now more than ever there’s kind of a spotlight on how overworked and what a shortage there is of frontline hospital staff, so we’re anxious to get more robots out there to help.”
Robots like UVD’s ultraviolent light-emitting robot and others used for telepresence are being deployed to fight coronavirus.
Moxi carried out more than 3,000 hours of testing in Austin and Dallas, Texas hospitals in 2018 and 2019, and earlier this year started work with its first customer, Medical City Healthcare in Dallas, Texas. The company has not yet shared specific data on just how much time Moxi gives back to human nurses, but those figures may be shared in a future white paper, Thomaz said.
Diligent Robotics previously raised $5 million in a seed round. The $10 million round was led DNX Ventures with participation from True Ventures, Ubiquity Ventures, Next Coast Ventures, Grit Ventures, E14 Fund, and Promus Ventures. Diligent Robotics was founded in 2017, has 18 employees, and is based in Austin.
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