Boston robotics startup Jibo just raised a new $13 million round from investors as it’s expected to finally ship its much-delayed social robot to backers of its 2014 crowdfunding campaign.
The startup disclosed the new funding round in a Form D filed on Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing shows that the startup is looking to raise a total of $28 million, with $15 million left to raise. Jibo had previously said it had raised a total of $60 million from investors, which include RRE Ventures, CRV, Acer and Flybridge Capital.
A representative for Jibo said the company declined to comment on the funding.
The new funding round comes after Jibo experienced multiple delays and other issues for its social robot.
After previously stating that the social robot would ship in October, Jibo said in an update to backers in September that it would now start shipping this month, with one big caveat: The robot would arrive as a “pre-launch” version with software that’s not finalized and would receive updates over time. Backers were given an option to receive the “pre-launch” version, which would likely have some bugs. Their other option was to wait an unspecified amount of time for the final public version.
Before that update, back in August, Jibo told backers outside of North America that their pre-orders were being canceled due to latency issues with U.S. servers that could have stunted the robot’s ability to understand accented English.
Jibo founder Cynthia Breazeal has previously said the social robot is different from products like Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa. “Jibo is designed to be an interactive character as much as it’s being designed to be a helpful device for the home,” she said in an September interview on CNN. “It brings together this sort of utility and helpfulness, but with this fun and companionship that is a much more welcoming warm experience.”
