Cruise founder Kyle Vogt is back with a robot startup

Kyle Vogt launches The Bot Company focusing on household chores with $150M funding.

: Kyle Vogt, former CEO of Cruise, has unveiled a new robotics startup named The Bot Company, aiming to develop robots for household chores. The venture is backed with a $150 million investment from notable figures including Nat Friedman and the Collison brothers. After leaving Cruise following a regulatory setback, Vogt is returning to the tech scene, bringing expertise from his past in self-driving cars and online platforms.

Kyle Vogt, known for his role in founding and leading the self-driving car company Cruise, has launched a new venture, The Bot Company, with the goal of creating robots to perform household chores. This move comes after Vogt's departure from Cruise, a company that experienced regulatory challenges following an accident, leading to his resignation five months ago. The Bot Company has already garnered significant attention with a $150 million funding round from prominent investors, including former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Pioneer founder Daniel Gross, and Stripe's Patrick and John Collison, highlighting the industry's confidence in Vogt's latest project.

Vogt's entrepreneurial journey has been marked by significant achievements, such as co-founding Justin.tv, which evolved into Twitch and was acquired by Amazon for $970 million, and Socialcam, acquired by Autodesk. His experience in developing cutting-edge technology, from live-streaming platforms to autonomous vehicles, has poised him to tackle the challenge of automating household chores. Alongside co-founders Paril Jain from Tesla and former Cruise engineer Luke Holoubek, Vogt aims to leverage his expertise in robotics and AI to enhance daily life, freeing people from routine tasks to focus on what they value most.

The Bot Company's inception reflects a growing trend towards the integration of robotics in everyday life, with the potential to significantly impact how household chores are approached. By drawing on his background in both software and autonomous systems, Vogt is seeking to drive innovation in the domestic sphere, proposing solutions that could reshape routines and provide users with more leisure time. This new venture not only marks Vogt's return to the forefront of technological entrepreneurship but also signals a broader shift in the tech industry towards creating practical applications of AI and robotics in the home setting.