Investment fund Grishin Robotics just poured $250,000 into Double Robotics, a telepresence system that uses an iPad and self-righting wheeled base to allow remote users to survey a scene.
Grishin is a Moscow-based fund aimed at making personal robots part of the home and office. The company did not disclose the terms of the deal.
Double is a Y Combinator company and they’ve already raised 600 pre-orders at $1,999 each. The investment will help the company with its manufacturing and staffing needs.
Mail.ru CEO Dmitry Grishin founded Grishin Robotics to invest in small, early-stage robotics start-ups. This is their first investment.
“Double Robotics’ investment perfectly aligns to our strategy”, said Grishin. “It is a very consumer-oriented product with potential to fit a very wide range of applications and has already proven a strong consumer demand.”
We got a chance to test Double at Disrupt in San Francisco where the team led remote viewers around the show floor. It’s a clever, compact product and it’s surprisingly easy to use. In short, we’re looking at democratized telepresence as a real thing, not just a weird pipe dream. Ain’t the future grand?