Toyota AI Ventures Wants to Fund Your Mobile Manipulation Startup

Today, Toyota AI Ventures in partnership with the Toyota Research Institute (TRI) is opening a "call for innovation" with the goal of throwing money at anyone with good ideas for "improving mobile manipulation technology for assistive robots that can help people in and around the home." Launched last year with US $100 million to spread around, Toyota AI Ventures has already started funding robotics companies, including Intuition Robotics and Realtime Robotics. While they seem to have not all that much trouble finding companies to give money to, this new approach is a bit more aggressive, perhaps with the aim of encouraging entrepreneurs who aren't sure whether or not they can get funding for a robotics startup to actually give it a try. Designed to spur entrepreneurial innovation by identifying key technology gaps, the initiative uses a call-and-response approach to offer promising startups the opportunity to secure from $500,000 to $2 million in venture capital funding from Toyota AI Ventures, as well as the possibility of partnering on a proof of concept project with TRI. The first call, developed in conjunction with TRI's world-class robotics group, focuses on improving mobile manipulation technology for assistive robots that can help people in and around the home.