Rice Robotics raises $7 million and powers delivery of SoftBank offices

In the crowded enterprise robotics space, the ability to secure key customers is a critical differentiator for businesses. In the case of Hong Kong-based Rice Robotics, the large order came from SoftBank.

Since January 2021, Rice's robots, with their cute, cartoonish blinking eyes, have been delivering 7-Eleven products to Softbank staff at the company's new headquarters in Takeshiba, Tokyo. These robots are capable of carrying a payload of 30 kg and have a storage space of 39 x 27 x 34 cm.

Rice effectively allows delivery people to simply drop off customer orders at a designated location for its robots to pick up, saving them the hassle of traveling in and out of office buildings. The robots can work continuously for 12 hours and recharge in one hour.

Recognition from SoftBank and other clients convinced several investors to support Rice's latest $7 million pre-Series A funding round. They include Alibaba Entrepreneur Fund, Soul Capital, Audacy Ventures, Sun Hung Kai & Company and Cyberport HK. There is no lead investor in the round.

The funding, Rice said, will allow it to further establish itself in Japan, which is now the company's main source of revenue. Besides SoftBank, Rice also counts Toyota, Japan Post and Mitsui Group among its Japanese customers.

Japan is a prime destination for Chinese robotics companies looking to expand internationally, given its aging population and openness to new technologies. ByteDance-backed warehouse robot maker Syrius Robotics, for example, made an early foray into Japan.

Southern China is undoubtedly home to the world's major hardware supply chains. Intuitively, Rice manufactures its robots in Hong Kong instead of mainland China, where factories are plentiful and labor costs are lower.

The four-year-old company previously manufactured its robots through an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) on the mainland, but discovered that manufacturing in its hometown significantly reduced the cost of its robots, said Rice founder and CEO Victor Lee. Tech Crunch.

Bulk manufacturing in mainland China is more economical, while Rice's production size is too small to achieve economies of scale, Lee explained. Additionally, the Hong Kong government is actively trying to attract high-tech manufacturing to diversify an economy that is losing its appeal as a financial hub for Asia.

Part of Rice's new funding has been deployed to establish a production facility in Hong Kong. The facility, which covers an area of ​​1,300 square feet, quadrupled the company's annual production capacity from 500 to 2,000 robots.

With a starting price of $9,000, Rice's robots use popular simultaneous location and mapping technology, known as SLAM, for navigation. A big advantage of SLAM is that it continuously compares sensor data with the given map, allowing the system to build an accurate, on-the-fly model of the environment and estimate a robot's precise location.

In addition to service robots, Rice also offers a line of disinfection robots, the demand for which has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, as has many other robotics companies.

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