Softbank-backed firm wants to put 100,000 cloud-based robots in the market by 2021, to seek US$300 million in private funding

Cloudminds Technology, the Santa Clara, California-based developer of a cloud-based platform capable of operating intelligent consumer services robots, is aiming to put 100,000 units of high-end robotics, such as humanoid robots, in the market by the end of 2021.

To realise this goal, Cloudminds and its business partners will need “billions of US dollars”, according to its chief financial officer, Richard Tang. The company is looking to raise at least US$300 million in Series B funding through a private shares sale soon.

“We prefer to have new investors who can also help us develop applications and commercialise our business plan,” Tang said in an interview on the sidelines of the Credit Suisse Asia Investment Conference this week.

“Traditionally, robots have self-contained brains, whose data-processing capacity is constrained by chip sizes and energy supply,” said Tang. “By moving the brains to a network cloud computing environment, robots can have access to infinite computing power, data storage and energy supply.”

Set up about four years ago, the company was founded by American Chinese Bill Huang Xiaoqing, a former president of the China Mobile Research Institute, and is backed by Japanese telecommunications and internet services giant Softbank, Taiwanese electronics contract manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group and technology sector investor Walden International. A US$120 million Series A funding round in 2017 valued the company at US$440 million.

Cloudminds has developed a cloud-based artificial intelligence and communications platform, and was looking for hardware partners to make the robots it wanted. “Unfortunately, high-end robotics hardware providers are few, and we could not find a particularly suitable partner. So we ended up developing the robots ourselves,” said Tang.