Jibo Creators Raise $11 Million to Bring Their Social Robot to Asia

Boston-based creators of humanoid robot Jibo have just raised $11 million to help them take it global, and crack the Asian market.

Pepper might have some major backing from Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba, and Taiwan-based Foxconn, but crowdfunded Jibo has a trick or two up its sleeve. Multi-functional Jibo can take videos and photographs independently by tracking the humans in his field of vision, and send and receive emails and voice messages. And similar to Pepper, Jibo is great at conversations, and can act as a teaching assistant to kids.

"He's not just an aluminum shell, nor is he just a three-axis motor system, he's not even just a connected device, he's one of the family," assert the creators in a YouTube video.

After racking up an impressive $3.7 million from its indiegogo campaign in September 2014, Jibo creators pocketed a further $25.3 million in January 2015. This time, Jibo is being backed by a whole host of Asia-based heavyweights. The list includes everyone from Dentsu Ventures, Korea-based LG Uplus, and Acer—to name just a few.

Jibo comes in two versions: One for consumers, and another for developers. Both versions are currently sold out, with the first Indiegogo orders expected to reach customers in Spring 2016.

For the moment, the compact Jibo social robot looks like it pretty much has everything that Pepper has. It's certainly more portable than 29kg Pepper. But as Asian markets like to judge a robot by its cover, will the one-eyed Cyclops lookalike have what it takes looks-wise to woo an Asian audience?