Tokyo, Japan - January 26, 2015 - Rapyuta Robotics Co., Ltd. (RR) has raised JPY 351 million (USD 2.96 million) in its first round of funding. Founded in July of 2014, the funding will be used to lay down the technical foundation for the company and to develop market-specific robotics solutions as part of its initial business plan. RR’s technical team currently consists mostly of members from the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control of ETH Zurich, which is well known for its unique and dynamic robotic systems, as well as from the EU-funded RoboEarth project, whose goal was to build an internet for robots.

A significant portion of this funding will be spent on the engineering efforts at the Zurich office.. Having engineering offices both in Tokyo and Zurich gives RR access to a large pool of talent, a crucial ingredient in building the next generation of robotic systems.

The funding round was lead by Cyberdyne Inc., a Japanese robotics and technology company most noted for its HAL 5 robotic exoskeleton suit. The funding also had participation from SBI investment, one of Japan’s leading venture capital firms; Fuji Creative Corporation, a subsidiary of Fuji Media holdings; and V-Cube Inc., the leader in Japan’s enterprise visual communications market. “In addition to the funding, the strategic partnerships we have with all our investors will significantly boost RR’s effort to bring its core technology to the the market,” said Arudchelvan Krishnamoorthy, co-founder and COO of RR.

“Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push towards the robot revolution is expected to double Japan’s robot-related market in the manufacturing sector and achieve a 20-fold jump in the non-manufacturing sector by 2020. I believe that RR can significantly contribute to this revolution with its Cloud Robotics approach, which significantly drives down the cost and increases the autonomy of robotic systems,” said Takeshi Goto, Director and Executive Officer of SBI investment Co., Ltd. “I am very excited about RR’s technology, especially their cloud robotics and control engineering efforts. This has the potential for a big impact,” added Prof. Dr. Yoshiyuki Sankai, CEO of Cyberdyne Inc.