Led · Series A · Jul 2017

Intuition Robotics develops ElliQ, a desktop home robot designed to act as a conversational companion for older adults. The company targets institutional partners and government agencies for go-to-market, pursuing large contracts in markets like Japan and the U.S. Current clients include the New York State Office for the Aging, the Area Agency on Aging of Broward County, the Olympic Area Agency on Aging and California’s Agency on Aging in Area 4. Intuition has been integrating large language models to deepen ElliQ’s conversational abilities and uses tools like DALLE2 to enable creative experiences, with guardrails and algorithmic controls. The company previously teamed with Toyota Research Institute on tech for the LQ concept vehicle, and Toyota-related funds have been active investors. Intuition says the new funding will be used to fulfill existing partnerships and strengthen its market approach. The product officially launched in March of last year. Intuition Robotics is best known for ElliQ, a proactive digital companion designed to create emotional bonds with older adults; the company also adapts the same Q platform for automotive applications. The team collected more than 10,000 days of in-home data from users aged roughly 78–97, finding average engagement of eight interactions per day lasting about six minutes and roughly 50% acceptance of proactive suggestions. The company is working with the Toyota Research Institute to bring its assistant (called “Yui” in Toyota’s LQ concept) to cars and says it is partnering with at least one other automaker. Intuition Robotics plans to use the new funding to expand research, improve design tools, and boost the runtime engine and agent performance. The company doubled its team over the past year to about 85 employees, most of whom are engineers, and maintains offices in Israel and San Francisco. Leadership says it will continue gathering data to demonstrate improvements in users’ quality of life while building out automotive integrations. Intuition Robotics builds ElliQ, a non-humanoid “funky lamp” companion robot that converses with and expresses emotion to older adults using position, sound, light, and voice. ElliQ is designed as proactive social companion technology that adapts over time to its owner’s needs. The company has conducted rigorous tests with older adults and is launching a U.S. beta program deploying ElliQ into homes across California and Florida to study longer-term integration with seniors and their families. Intuition Robotics was founded in 2015 and is based in Israel. The company expects a full commercial launch of ElliQ sometime in 2018. Financially, it had raised around $16 million prior to the latest tranche and disclosed a new $6 million raise. Intuition Robotics builds ElliQ, an “active aging companion” consisting of an interactive robot attached to a tablet. ElliQ is designed to help older adults age in place by enabling family video chat, suggesting activities, and reminding users to take medication. The company has entered initial testing with users in the Bay Area and opened a San Francisco office as it hires staff to ramp up testing and development. Hardware development challenges prompted the company to seek additional funding and expertise. Toyota Research Institute invested $14 million and provided technical help, including replacing some motors in the ElliQ prototype. Earlier financing included a recent $6 million from investors such as iRobot, Terra Venture Partners, Bloomberg Beta and Maniv Mobility, and the company has also raised funds via crowdfunding platform OurCrowd. Intuition Robotics develops ElliQ, what the company calls an "autonomous active aging companion": an interactive robot attached to a tablet designed to help older adults age in place. ElliQ facilitates family contact via video chat, suggests activities, and reminds users to take medicine while using cognitive computing to proactively monitor wellness rather than relying solely on voice commands. The device was industrially designed by Yves Behar to be highly interactive and emotive, with gestures that can show happiness or signal confusion. Intuition Robotics is Jerusalem-based and plans to open a Bay Area office and begin testing ElliQ with senior citizens in San Francisco. To grow its team and advance user testing, the company has raised a total of $6 million in funding. Investors include iRobot, Terra Venture Partners, Bloomberg Beta, Maniv Mobility and equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd.