Austin, Texas — Maidbot, a company pioneering commercial service robotics and creator of Rosie the Robot, has closed a Series B round, which will accelerate production and enable deployments across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. The funding is being led by RB, a health, hygiene, and nutrition company and the makers of brands including Lysol, Dettol, Harpic, Finish, and Mucinex. RB has recently established a Global Business Solutions division to support businesses such as Delta, Hilton, and Avis with enhanced hygiene standards.
Maidbot is partnering with RB to drive greater confidence in the hospitality and commercial real estate industries by innovating cleaner, more hygienic experiences for guests and employees alike. The two companies will collaborate to develop commercial cleaning solutions.
“We’re delighted to invest in Maidbot’s vision to bring robotics to the commercial service industry. Maidbot has the potential to drive significant improvements to hygiene standards across many sectors. Through this investment and our partnership, Maidbot and RB will enable more businesses to reassure customers on cleanliness and deliver an enhanced hygienic experience,” commented Rahul Kadyan, RB’s EVP of Global Business Solutions.
Octave Ventures, a leading venture fund supported by Peter Thiel that led Maidbot’s Series A round, also participated in the most recent funding round. In addition to Octave Ventures, several VCs alongside hospitality and commercial real estate executives and family offices participated in the round.
The COVID crisis presents an urgent need to improve hygiene so people can participate in social interactions again. Maidbot is in the midst of significant growth partnering with the largest brands and real estate companies in the world, serving traditional hotels, resorts, major casinos, commercial real estate, airports, apartment buildings, universities, and stadiums.
“We are very excited to partner with RB to provide more robots to enhance hygiene in the hospitality and commercial service industries. COVID has had an unprecedented impact on these sectors and we are confident robotics can be part of the non-pharmaceutical solutions that make the physical world a healthy and safe place again,” said Micah Estis Green, Maidbot founder and 24-year-old CEO.
Hailing from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Micah Estis Green conceptualized the idea for Maidbot when he was a student working as a room attendant at The Statler Hotel on Cornell University’s campus. While cleaning rooms, he realized housekeeping is a hotel’s highest variable cost; room attendants have the highest rate of injury; and staff still use clipboards and walkie-talkies. Green also saw similar issues in other types of commercial real estate with demanding cleaning operations.
As the team designed the hardware and navigation software to optimize Rosie’s cleaning function for varied environments, they uncovered demand for predictive data that could provide significant added value to management. Covering every square foot of these commercial spaces nearly every day, Rosie can track environmental data from temperature and humidity to WiFi signal strength. Rosie evolved from being the first commercial floor cleaning robot to the first indoor mobile data platform—mapping indoor data over physical space for the first time.
With a growing team, a finished Rosie product, production established, and now Series B funding closed, Maidbot is on track to scale its deployments domestically and internationally with large deals already signed in Europe and parts of Asia.
