Diligent Robotics scores $25M to scale ‘socially-intelligent service robots’

Diligent Robotics, maker of the autonomous clinical support robot Moxi, announced it scored $25 million in new funding. 

Canaan led the round with participation from existing investors DNX Ventures, True Ventures, Next Coast Ventures and new investor Northwestern Medicine Innovation. 

Rich Boyle, general partner at Canaan, will join Diligent Robotics’ board of directors. 

WHAT THEY DO

Diligent’s flagship product, the Moxi robot, performs delivery tasks that are not patient-facing for hospital workers, such as delivering lab samples, bringing supplies from central storage, delivering medications, getting patients’ items, distributing personal protective equipment and moving light-weight equipment between units.

Moxi features a “face” with LED eye expressions, a robotic arm that helps it navigate doors and elevators and storage containers.

The Texas-based company will use the funds to scale its Moxi robot across hospitals throughout the U.S. and further develop its product. 

“The incredible demand we’ve seen for Moxi is a testament to the clear value of using robotic automation to augment and support frontline hospital care teams, but also our highly customer-centric approach to bringing new technology and operational change into healthcare,” Dr. Andrea Thomaz, Diligent Robotics’ cofounder and CEO, said in a statement. 

“This funding round will enable us to scale fleets and accelerate product development while remaining true to our vision of creating robots that function as core team members and elevate the standards of healthcare through robotics.”

MARKET SNAPSHOT 

Diligent launched in 2019 with $3 million in seed funding. A year later, it scored $10 million in funding and joined the Cedars-Sinai Accelerator class announced in February 2021. 

Last year, the company added more than $30 million to its total raise in a Series B funding round, and its cofounder and CEO Andrea Thomaz told MobiHealthNews, “Robotics and automation are becoming just much more mainstream in hospitals and healthcare. And so we’re excited to expand and be able to meet that demand and just get more robots out faster.” 

Another company providing robots for use in healthcare is Movia, which offers its TheraPal Home and TheraPal Clinical Assist Aides to help children with autism and other developmental and intellectual disabilities practice social skills, reading and math.