Cruise founder Kyle Vogt is back with a robot startup | TechCrunch
Kyle Vogt, the former founder and CEO of self-driving car company Cruise, has a new VC-backed robotics startup focused on household chores.
Vogt announced Monday that the new startup, called the Bot Company, has raised $150 million from former Github CEO and investor Nat Friedman, Pioneer founder and investor Daniel Gross, Spark Capital general partner Nabeel Hyatt, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, Stripe co-founder John Collison and Quiet Capital.
Vogt founded the startup with Paril Jain, who led the AI tech team at Tesla, and former Cruise software engineer Luke Holoubek.
“We’re building bots that do chores so you don’t have to. Everyone is busy. Bots can help,” Vogt wrote on social media X. “So many things compete for our time – commutes, longer working hours, and the complexities of modern life. Our team has spent years building robots (including the self-driving kind) that give people some of that time back, and we’re taking that a step further with this company.”
Vogt did not respond to a request for comment.
The new endeavor comes five months after Vogt resigned as CEO of Cruise, the autonomous vehicle startup that he founded in 2013 and was later acquired by General Motors. His resignation followed an October 2 incident that saw a Cruise vehicle run over and drag a pedestrian 20 feet, after the pedestrian had been hit by a human-driven car. The event coupled with the company’s response prompted California regulators to suspend Cruise’s deployment and driverless testing permits, effectively ending its robotaxi operations in the state where the bulk of its operations were located.
Since his resignation, Vogt has maintained a relatively low public profile. Vogt’s return however shouldn’t surprise those who have followed his career. Prior to Cruise, Vogt had co-founded Justin.tv, a website that allowed anyone to broadcast video online; it later morphed into Twitch, a live-streaming platform acquired by Amazon in 2014 for $970 million. He also founded Socialcam, which was acquired by Autodesk for $60 million in 2012.
