Trifo, developer of a cleaning-based surveillance system, increased its total funding to $26m in a round that included Yidu Cloud.
US-based home robotics technology developer Trifo has received $15m in series B funding from investors including Tsinghua AI Fund, which invests on behalf of Tsinghua University.
Medical artificial intelligence technology producer Yidu Cloud and venture capital firm Matrix Partners also took part in the round, which increased the company’s overall funding to $26m.
Trifo develops robots for home use, its first product being Max, an automated home vacuum that also monitors a user’s home picking up sights and sounds along with dirt.
The funding was announced together with the launch of Lucy, an upgraded vacuum cleaner that can identify and sort different rooms while enhancing surveillance capabilities through tools such as indoor mapping and position tracking.
Yidu Cloud senior vice-president Rick Liang said: “We support Trifo’s vision for AI home robots, which goes beyond traditional cleaning capabilities. With the strategic investment in Trifo, we look forward to enhancing the home robot experience into a new dimension (ie. healthy home and consumer-level health monitoring).”
Tsinghua AI Fund had already led the company’s previous round, an $11m series A in late 2018 that included Samsung Ventures, a corporate venturing vehicle for electronics producer Samsung, as well as Matrix Partners and Walden International.
– A version of this article first appeared on our sister site, Global Corporate Venturing.
