Diligent-Robotics

Diligent Robotics Raises US$25M to grow its fleet of intelligent service robots for healthcare

Diligent Robotics, the unchallenged leader in robotic automation in health care, announced today a $25 million fresh funding led by Canaan, with return investors including True Ventures, DNX Ventures, Next Coast Ventures, and Northwestern Medicine Innovation joining as a new strategic investor. Canaan's Rich Boyle will join the board of directors. The cash will be used to fuel system-wide expansions of its groundbreaking Moxi robot throughout hospitals across the country, improve product development, and treble the company's market reach.

"The incredible demand we've seen for Moxi is a testament not only to the clear value of using robotic automation to augment and support frontline hospital care teams but also to our highly customer-centric approach to bringing new technology and operational change into healthcare," said Andrea Thomaz, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Diligent Robotics.

We approach our work with tremendous empathy for the individuals who care for patients every day, and it's been fantastic to see how Moxi helps nursing, pharmacy, lab, and full clinical care teams. This round of investment will allow us to increase fleets and speed product development while staying true to our mission of building robots that operate as essential team members and enhance healthcare standards through robotics."

Diligent Robotics is the designer of Moxi, the first and only socially intelligent robot colleague in the field today. Moxi works across health systems to increase the operational efficiency of hospital care teams so they have more time for patient care and can practice to the best of their ability. Diligent Robotics, founded by Dr. Andrea Thomaz and Dr. Vivian Chu, uses cutting-edge robotics technology to enable robots to interact within and adapt to human contexts. Moxi's impact includes augmenting staff and care teams by offloading hospital-wide deliveries of supplies, equipment, medication, and lab deliveries, and it is increasingly allowing new and existing high-value programmes, such as Meds to Beds, Just in Time Logistics, and Virtual Nursing, to scale efficiently.

The company expects to triple its market footprint over the next 24 months, including systemwide expansion within the majority of the health systems, after being adopted and operating in more than 22 health systems representing more than 200 hospitals nationwide, including NorthShore - Edward-Elmhurst Health, MultiCare Health System, The University of Texas affiliated network of health systems, Northwestern Medicine, and many others.

"As an organisation guided by our Patients First mission, we continue to investigate how innovation and technology can help our clinicians and staff improve their ability to care for our patients," said Doug King, senior vice president and chief information officer at Northwestern Medicine. "We deployed Moxi in targeted areas throughout Northwestern Memorial Hospital, led by our team at the Northwestern Medicine Mansueto Innovation Institute, to support clinical staff by automating and scheduling pickups of non-tubable lab specimens and medications." The implementation of this technology benefited both employees and workflow. We are excited to roll out Moxi across our health system shortly."

Diligent Robotics Exceeds Customer Expectations, Manufacturing Milestones, and Autonomy Metrics

This round of investment follows Diligent Robotics' record year, in which the business made great progress in product development, client implementation strategy, and production capacity. The firm has formed new strategic alliances and collaborations with prominent healthcare institutions, as well as expanded its production capabilities. Diligent has also enhanced a quality assurance procedure that allows for the construction of several robots at different stages of production, improving manufacturing capacity and resulting in a shorter deployment window for Moxi.  Services are typically operational within 30 days of the arrival of the robot.

Diligent Robotics also outperformed numerous notable autonomous criteria, including the completion of over 400,000 total deliveries, freeing up over 200,000 hours for personnel to spend with patients. Moxi robots have automatically opened hundreds of thousands of doors over the last year using their cutting-edge mobile manipulation method for human contexts, and Moxi has autonomously navigated lifts tens of thousands of times in the last month alone.

It should be noted that Children's Hospital Los Angeles was the first children's hospital to use Moxi. Two Moxi robots carry drugs and pharmaceutical products throughout the clock along various routes across the facility. Moxi has completed over 2,500 deliveries, travelled 132 miles, and saved workers over 383,000 steps and 1,620 hours of work time in just over four months. Diligent Robotics has recently signed up with numerous children's hospitals and hopes to boost its market share among children's hospitals even more in 2024.

"With healthcare staffing needs outstripping available labour, hospitals must make the best use of their limited workforces to meet demand." That means identifying new efficiencies in previously unaddressed areas and allowing employees to return to their most gratifying job," said Rich Boyle, Canaan's general partner. "Many of the nation's top healthcare systems have already eagerly adopted Moxi, and the positive impact on productivity, patient outcomes, and team morale is clear." Both of these factors contribute to our belief in Diligent Robotics' bright future, and we are excited to be leading this latest round of funding."