IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2014 - 14

Industrial Activities

2013 IROS Industry Forum: Where Does
Entrepreneurship Fit Within
Industry and Academia?
By Torsten Kroeger and Raj Madhavan

R

obotics entrepreneurship! The
steadily growing interest in
robotics research has brought
us to a new age where recently
developed technologies emerge into
new markets. Whereas large companies
run their own in-house research and
development programs, many innovative ideas are born in academic research
labs all over the planet. It is often
remarked that, as a community-both
within industry and academia-much
needs to be done to productize these
research outcomes and bridge the gap
between these communities. While this
intention is noble, the execution of how
to make this a reality has been dismal.
The recent increase of research funding programs in Europe, Asia, and North
America and the readiness of venture
capital firms to invest in robotics start-up
companies should make us aware of the
possibility that we are approaching a
"robotics bubble." Investors are asked to
pay attention to the details and not
blindly bet on ongoing hype, while at the
same time, roboticists and researchers are
asked to provide clear guidance on developing new innovative products.
To understand the expectations of
industry, academia, and investors when
it comes to robotics entrepreneurship,
the IEEE Robotics and Automation
Society's Industrial Activities Board
organized a half-day Industry Forum at
the 2013 IEEE/Robotics Society of Japan
(RSJ) International Conference on
Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) in
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2013.2297598
Date of publication: 10 March 2014

14

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IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

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Tokyo on 5 November 2013 (Figure 1).
Founders from some of the most successful start-up companies were invited
to share their experiences on how they
"made it." They were asked to not view
the invitation as an advertisement
opportunity but to present and focus on
the "birth story" of their company.
All founders shared good and bad
anecdotes of the "early days," positive
and negative experiences during their
start-up time, relevant and irrelevant
outcomes of partnerships with academia, experiences of collaborations
with large companies, lessons learned
from getting the first customer(s), abilities learned from consultants and partners, the role of financial investors, and
plans of how to proceed in the future.
Mario E. Munich, former chief technology officer (CTO) of Evolution
Robotics (United States), gave a plenary
talk and provided insights about the history of his company from the very beginning until the acquisition by iRobot in
2012. Dealing with the advantages and
disadvantages of venture capital and considering exit strategies while steadily
maintaining a good culture by taking care
of the employees was vital to the success
of Evolution's automatic floor cleaner.
François Conti, from Force Dimension in Switzerland, explained how he
and his three partners bootstrapped their
haptics company after graduating from
the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
in Lausanne (EPFL) and how they
focused on steady but slow growth. Jeremy Fishel and his partners from Syntouch in California started their company
in the academic world. Supported

MARCH 2014

by government research grants, they
transferred research results from the University of Southern California to develop
tactile sensors that are used in prosthetics
and industrial robotic applications.
Balancing market pull and technology push, François Boucher from
Kinova in Canada reported on their
early years of development before entering the market with their robot arms for
service robotics, manipulation, and
rehabilitation. Aaron Edsinger, cofounder of Meka Robotics and Redwood Robotics in California (both
companies were acquired by Google in
December 2013), unveiled different
funding strategies involving governmental research grants as well as venture investments from multiple firms.
Italians Paulo Debenest and Michele
Guarnieri, founders of HiBot in Japan,
have already taken multiple concepts
from academic labs and created innovative robotics products. Andrija Feher has
started Synapticon in Germany with
Nikolai Ensslen. Their roots do not originate directly from robotics research
labs, and they have developed hardware
and software products for decentralized
robot motion control systems in industry and academia.
ZMP, Inc. from Japan was represented by CTO Akihiro Nishimura. He
showed several robotics product development approaches, some of which have
not led to actual products but led his
company to successful implementations
of generic car robotics platforms and
sensor systems. Andra Keay from Silicon
Valley Robotics exposed the spirit of the
Silicon Valley, where many robotics



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2014

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