Robotics startups vs other startups
Plus some startup deadlines, and 'people to know about' in robotics
According to Strictly VC, there were more than 54,000 venture-backed U.S. startups at the end of last year, compared with 12,522 startups at the end of 2010.
Remember how many US based robotics startups there were in 2010? Approx 100 using the same data as the stats above. Now there are more like 7,000 in the US alone (same dataset).
So all startups have grown 4x compared to robotics startups 70x. Yay robotics!
By the way; of those approx 100 robotics startups in 2010, roughly 1/3 exited, 1/3 closed and 1/3 aren’t talking to anyone.
Also OpenAI reached $2B in revenue, according to the Financial Times, making it the fastest growing startup ever.
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If you are a robotics company, February is a great time to join Silicon Valley Robotics.
2024 IEEE RAS Fellow Class Announced
Congratulations to the following IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) members who were elevated to Fellow grade, effective 1 January 2024! Nominees for IEEE Fellow must hold the grade of Senior Member or Life Senior Member to qualify for elevation to Fellow status.
2024 RAS Fellows Evaluated by RAS
Chien Cheah — for contributions to task-space robot control and dynamic multi- robot control
Noah Cowan — for contributions to sensing, navigation, and control in animals and machines
Mariagrazia Dotoli — for contributions to control of logistics systems in smart cities
Sami Haddadin — for contributions to robot safety, tactile robots, and interaction control
George Q Huang — for contributions on digitization framework and cyber-physical analytics for smart manufacturing
Paul Oh — for contributions to unmanned aerial vehicles and humanoid robotics
Danail Stoyanov — for contributions to intelligent computer-assisted surgical and diagnostical systems
Salah Sukkarieh — for contributions to robotic navigation in aerial and agricultural applications
Sheng Xie — for contribution to robotics for rehabilitation and healthcare
2024 RAS Fellows Evaluated by Other IEEE Societies
Evaluated by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society: Long Cheng — for contributions to neural networks for optimization and control
Evaluated by the IEEE Computer Society: Niklas Karlsson — for technical leadership to vSLAM and online advertising
Evaluated by the IEEE Computer Society: Zhiyun Lin — for contributions to distributed multi-agent systems and autonomous systems
Evaluated by the IEEE Computer Society: Fumin Zhang — for contributions to autonomy of robotic sensing networks and control of marine robots
Evaluated by the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society: Hiroshi Fujimoto — for contributions to control of high-precision systems
Evaluated by the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society: Toshiyuki Murakami — for contributions to reaction torque observer and power assisted control
Evaluated by the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society: Chenguang Yang — for contributions to control and learning of mechatronic systems
Evaluated by the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society: Tao Zhang — for contributions to robot vision perception and adaptive fault- tolerant control
Evaluated by the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society: Azim Eskandarian — for contributions to communication and control of intelligent autonomous vehicles
Evaluated by the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society: Mingcong Deng — for contributions to learning and operator based uncertain nonlinear systems analysis, control, and applications
IERA AWARD SUBMISSIONS DEADLINE TODAY!
The purpose of the IEEE/IFR Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation (IERA) Award is to highlight and honor the achievements of the inventors who value creating ideas and entrepreneurs who propel those ideas into world-class products. In a joint event, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) and the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) will therefore recognize and honor the outstanding personal achievements of entrepreneurs in the commercialization of innovative robotic and automation technology.
Click here and check out this year's handout for more details. For more information about the award, including previous winners, check out the IEEE IERA page. Please note that applications are due by 10 February 2024; they may be submitted either to secretariat@ifr.org or to ras@ieee.org.
Robotics News:
Fast Company’s Innovation by Design competition deadline is 2/23
*note that there is a fee to enter - however some robot startups could stand out here!
These guys built a robot to give you a perfect manicure - Fast Company
Starship Technologies raises $90M as its sidewalk robots pass 6M deliveries - TechCrunch
Autonomous robots are cutting grass in this Southern California town - KTLA5
10 startups selected for MassRobotics Accelerator - The Robot Report
Building robots for “Zero Mass” space exploration - Ars Technica
Meet Iruyo, Nissan’s furry robots that babysit and play with children while the parents drive - DesignBoom
DeepMind’s GenEM uses LLMs to generate expressive behaviors for robots - VentureBeat
1X robotics company showcases its androids driven by neural networks - Readwrite
ISEE commercially deploys world’s first fully autonomous truck yard - BusinessWire
Fox Robotics Surpasses 2.5 million pallet pulls with industry-first FoxBot autonomous trailer loader/unloader - BusinessWire
Interesting Robotics:
Extinct sea creatures inspire new soft robots - Popular Science
AI afterlife, robot romance, and slow-burn slashers: the best of Sundance 2024 - The Verge
What will robots think of us? - Robin Murphy in ScienceRobotics
Robotics Events:
6 March - Bots&Beer - looking for venue in Peninsula or SF
5-6 April - SF Symphony: Press Play Carol Reiley and the Robots - Soundbox SF
6 April - Robot Block Party - exciting new location (more news soon!)
18-21 April 2024 - RoboGames - TBC
21 April 2024 - Robots on Ice - Yerba Buena Skating Rink SF
Some upcoming academic robotics conferences
TAHRI 2024 Boulder CO 9 Mar - 10 Mar (Technology Advances for HRI)
HRI 2024 Boulder CO 11 Mar - 14 Mar
Haptics 2024 Long Beach CA 7 Apr - 10 Apr
Robosoft 2024 San Diego CA 14 Apr - 17 Apr
ICRA 2024 Yokohama Japan 13 May - 17 May 2024
ARSO 2024 Hong Kong, China 20 May - 22 May 2024
AIM 2024 Boston MA 14 July - 18 July
CASE 2024 Puglia Italy 28 Aug - 1 Sep 2024
IROS 2024 AbuDhabi 14 Oct - 18 Oct 2024
Humanoids 2024 Nancy FR 26 Nov - 28 Nov
ICRA 2025 Atlanta Georgia 17 May - 23 May 2025