Smarter, autonomous robots, have been developed over the past five years thanks to advances in mobile computing, sensors and AI. Many of these robots are now being deployed to assist in the fight against COVID-19 in an effort to “flatten the curve” of cases or provide human-augmented services for companies providing essential functions.

The market for autonomous service robots is on the verge of a massive expansion. This has been largely driven by advancements in core technologies such as computer vision as well as lower cost of key hardware components and a standardized software stack.

Like we’ve seen with other technology waves such as cloud and mobile, venture capital is pouring into the robotics space, tripling in size from 2016 to 2017 and reaching +5B in 2017 by some estimates, which in turn is attracting more startups tackling an incredible variety of problems, from life-saving to mundane.