ANYbotics led the way in the ICRA 2018 Robot Launch Startup Competition on May 22, 2018 at the Brisbane Conference Center in Australia. Although ANYbotics pitched last out of the 10 startups presenting, they clearly won over the judges and audience. As competition winners, ANYbotics received a $3,000 prize from QUT bluebox, Australia's robotics accelerator (currently taking applications for 2018!), plus Silicon Valley Robotics membership and mentoring from The Robotics Hub. ANYbotics is a Swiss startup creating fabulous four legged robots like ANYmal and the core component, the ANYdrive highly integrated modular robotic joint actuator. Founded in 2016 by a group of ETH Zurich engineers, ANYbotics is a spin-off company of the Robotic Systems Lab (RSL), ETH Zurich.

This was a busy year for robotics! The 10 most read Robohub articles in 2017 show an increased interest in machine learning, and a thirst to learn how robots work and can be programmed. Highlights also include the Robohub Podcast, which just celebrated its 250th episode (that's 10 years of bi-weekly interviews in robotics), the Robot Launch Startup Competition, and our yearly list of 25 women in robotics you need to know about. Finally, we couldn't skip over some of the remarkable events of 2017, including a swarm of drones flying over Metallica, and Sophia "gaining citizenship".

While in previous years we've had public voting for all the startups, running alongside the investor judging, this year it's an opt-in, because many of the startups seeking investment are not yet ready to publicize. Each year the startups get better and better, so we can't wait to see who you think is the best! Make sure you vote for your favorite – below – by 6pm PST, 10 December and spread the word through social media using #robotlaunch2017. BotsAndUs believe in humans and robots collaborating towards a better life. Our aim is to create physical and emotional comfort with robots to support wide adoption.