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Micah Green dropped out of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration after his freshman year in 2015. Since then, he’s closed a $2 million Series A round of funding for his startup Maidbot, of which he’s CEO, been named to Forbes’ 30U30 list and a 2017 Thiel Fellow and also guest lectures at Cornell’s Samuel Curtis Johnson School of Management and the university’s Industrial and Labor Relations School. But most recently, Green’s company received an undisclosed investment sum from Bissell, along with 1517 Fund, Comet Labs and Rough Draft Ventures. More specifically, Bissell’s investment will also provide Maidbot with access to the larger company’s extensive research and development, particularly in the area of wet cleaning as well as Bissell’s mass production and operations processes while Bissell will leverage the startup’s core competencies: robotics platforms for engineering, hardware and software, control systems and data. The pairing is, in fact, nothing short of logical as Maidbot’s launch product is Rosie, an autonomous floor cleaner somewhat similar tothe Roomba, but designed for industrial performance and with the added feature of a mobile data platform that can provide users with detailed insights on mold growth and foot traffic patterns, among other things. Three years after launching Maidbot, Green and his team –including the company’s chief technology officer David Moroniti who previously taught autonomous systems at Georgia Tech as well as former staff from Starwood Hotels and Resorts, SpaceX, NASA and Apple—will continue working with a number of hospitality, cleaning and retail brands on a series of three-month pilot programs through mid-2018 before delivering its first products by late in the year. Maidbot’s total staff currently numbers 21. Read original article |
