Younger lady now has a $100m robotic helper start-up

LOS ANGELES: Andromeda, a robotics firm constructing companion robots for the aged, led by a 25-year-old Melburnian, is value $100 million after scoring the largest early-stage funding spherical for a woman-led start-up this yr.

Grace Brown, a mechatronic engineering graduate from the College of Melbourne who co-founded Andromeda with college buddy Yan Chen in 2022, has closed a $23 million sequence A funding spherical from traders together with San Francisco-based Forerunner Ventures, Rethink Affect and Primary Sequence Ventures.
The newest model of its humanoid robotic, known as Abi, can converse in numerous languages, be programmed with aged care residents’ day by day schedules, lead group actions and construct one-on-one connections with any residents who don’t obtain many guests.

Brown mentioned the funding will let it quickly develop its manufacturing functionality from eight robots per 30 days to 100, and set up a US presence. She is going to transfer to San Francisco this month to arrange its operations.

Seen Ventures, Trampoline and Objective Ventures additionally participated within the capital elevating which valued Andromeda at $100 million, as did angel investor and former Atlassian office futurist Dominic Value.

“From a very younger age I loved maths and science. I’ve it in my diary from once I was 4 or 5, that I needed to be a mermaid, fairy, mathematician,” Brown mentioned.

“After I had the concept of constructing Abi, it was my very own venture, I used to be funding all of it myself … I had all of the instruments and I simply acquired began on my own in my bed room.
“However robotics is an costly passion or ardour to pursue for a cash-poor pupil, so in 2020 I pitched to my tutors and lecturers to fund my venture. Nobody took me critically.”

Brown mentioned the turning level got here in 2021 when she entered and gained a contest placed on by Vogue for future innovators, with a $10,000 prize. One of many judges was Lauren Capelin, who now works for Amazon Net Providers, however on the time was a principal at start-up accelerator program Startmate.

She was accepted into the Startmate program in 2022 and acquired a $120,000 cheque that allow her stop her part-time job on the college workshop.

Brown raised a $3 million seed spherical in 2024, however rapidly realised she was going to wish far more capital when Andromeda’s buyer ready record blew out to 12 months.

“In two to a few years, I’d wish to be very nicely established within the US, be throughout a number of continents … and have round 10,000 deployments of Abi,” she mentioned.

“We’re on the frontier of emotion, character AI and social methods design, constructing a brand new sort of relationship that feels heat, useful and profoundly human as a result of the world wants extra of that.”

Brown joins a small group of feminine founders to realize a milestone nine-figure valuation, at a time when the nation’s largest enterprise capital funds are struggling to satisfy their gender range investing targets.

She mentioned she didn’t imagine there was an overt choice for males over ladies amongst traders, however had wanted to develop extra expertise than male friends to confidently pitch for funding in opposition to “very, very unconscious” bias.

“The presents I used to be receiving earlier this yr had been the identical presents a few of my male friends had been receiving after they simply had an thought on a serviette. There was a section the place I felt prefer it was an enormous slap within the face,” she mentioned.

“I’d demonstrated that I could lead on, construct a crew and convey a product to market. [Now] I’ve confirmed that we now have product-market match and that our clients love our product.”

supply: https://seniorstrends.com/young-woman-now-has-a-100m-robot-helper-start-up/