RAMAT GAN, Israel—Intuition Robotics announced that it has secured the first closing of a new funding round amounting to $25 million, $20 million in venture capital and $5 million in venture debt, and led by Woven Capital, the growth fund of Toyota, with participation from Toyota Ventures, OurCrowd, Western Technology Investment and additional investors. According to Intuition Robotics, the funding will help the company meet demand for its artificial care (AI) care companion ElliQ across government aging agencies and health care organizations. It will also allow the company to deepen integrations into the health care system and help aging populations better connect with others, and better access much-needed products and services while reducing costs.
Intuition Robotics has pioneered ElliQ, an AI companion designed to combat loneliness and promote healthy, independent living among older adults. ElliQ provides companionship and support for older adults through daily health check-ins, cognitive and physical activities, connection to family and friends and more.
“Intuition Robotics is advancing the future of mobility for aging populations by offering human connection and access to goods and services that they couldn’t obtain otherwise,” said Nicole LeBlanc, a partner at Woven Capital who is also joining the company’s board of directors. “The company is leading the way by providing a field-proven solution that delivers strong results, improving social infrastructure and serving overlooked markets in unique, thoughtful and powerful ways. These are precisely the values behind the future of mobility that Toyota is bringing to life, making Intuition Robotics a natural fit for Woven Capital.”
The funding round comes on the heels of a commercial launch with government agencies across the United States. Intuition Robotics has initiated programs to distribute ElliQ at no cost to end users with 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. In addition, the company signed its first agreement with a Managed Care Organization focusing on Medicare beneficiaries.
The latest advancements in generative AI and the prevalence of transformers and Large Language Models (LLMs) have allowed Intuition Robotics to integrate rich and continuous conversational experiences into ElliQ. By leveraging these advancements, ElliQ has deepened its conversational abilities, allowing for an even deeper relationship to evolve between ElliQ and the user. The company has developed technology that chooses the areas where to integrate multiple LLMs into the experiences such as sparking the creativity of the users by painting with ElliQ through the use of DALLE2, augmenting scripted conversations and achieving deeper contextual understanding.
"We’ve seen the direct impact that loneliness has had on our aging community, but we’ve also seen the positive results our AI and technology have on the older adult population. Beyond the groundbreaking results in reducing loneliness—ElliQ is also seeing an impact on health, wellness and behavior change,” said Dor Skuler, CEO and co-founder of Intuition Robotics. “The latest advancements in AI have advanced ElliQ’s conversational capabilities to become even more contextual, personalized and goal-driven. We’re proud to be at the forefront of harnessing this technology for the benefit of our users. We are excited to utilize this new funding to deploy more ElliQ devices out into the world, further increase its accessibility, expand partnerships and gain a deeper understanding of the role ElliQ can play in the health care ecosystem. We are grateful for the support of Woven Capital and our additional investors as we continue our mission to empower older adults to live happier, healthier and more independent lives at home."
"Since we first invested in Intuition Robotics in 2017, we’ve been inspired by the team's mission to empower older adults using AI," said Jim Adler, founder and general partner of Toyota Ventures. "It’s exciting to see the progress they’ve made over the years—from ElliQ’s initial development and testing, to the commercial deployment and now a growing number of partnerships. We share the company’s vision of using technology to amplify the human experience and look forward to seeing how ElliQ will continue to enrich the lives of older adults.”
