From Vincross, the folks who brought you the HEXA robot, is a new Kickstarter for MIND KIT, a modular robotics development platform that you can use to build that robot that you've always wanted but doesn't exist yet. "A robot that keeps hugging you and won't leave you alone" is either the best thing ever, or a horror movie. Worth the risk, I'd say. It's nice that the system is so modular, and also that it looks like there's a strong emphasis on manipulation, which you don't always get from robotics kits that tend to be primarily mobile bases and not much else out of the box. There's also some built-in functionality, like map-making that works with the mobile base and lidar module. Specs-wise, the brain module contains a quad-core 1.2 GHz processor with 2 GB of RAM and 8 GB of storage.

Vincross, the company behind the six-legged robot Hexa, said on Tuesday that it's picked up $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Lenovo Capital, the startup fund managed by Lenovo Group. Returning investor GGV Capital and newcomer Seekdource Capital also participated. The company declined to disclose its latest valuation but said the proceeds will go towards research and development as well as new product lines. Neuroscience and artificial intelligence researcher Tianqi Sun started Vincross in Beijing back in 2016 when he raised $220,000 for Hexa on Kickstarter. At the time the insectile, programmable robot had separated itself from the horde of humanoids on the market by billing itself as the first robot that can climb stairs, making it suitable for firefighting and other rescue tasks.