Furhat | The Human Face of AI

Summary
Interacting with AI by talking is becoming increasingly common. Today we can order food, find out currency exchange rates & get answers to FAQs by messaging bots running in Facebook, WhatsApp or Telegram. Virtual assistants like Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa or Yandex Alisa migrate from smartphones to smart speakers in our living rooms.
Simultaneously we are witnessing the emergence of social robots—a new class of robots for whom social interaction plays the key role.
A social robot is a robot that can show emotions, have capabilities to converse on an advanced level, understands the mental models of its social partners, forms social relationships, makes use of natural communication cues, shows personality & learns social capabilities . In essence, a social robot = robot or AI + social interface.
There are serious technological problems to broad acceptance of social robots & the main one is the non-realistic interactions.
At Furhat Robotics we are developing the 1st scalable social robotics platform. Furhat, the robot built on this platform, is a fully programmable social robot capable of expressing a broad range of emotions & carrying out a realistic conversation with humans.
We have sold 80+ Furhats to 50+ customers—Disney, Intel, Merck, KPMG, Swedbank, Deutsche Telekom, Honda & others. Finally, we are an official partner of the Dubai Expo2020 exhibition.
In total we have generated €2.1m in early revenues. In Sep 2017 we raised €2.13m of venture capital from Balderton Capital & LocalGlobe (both from the UK).
We are aiming at creating completely new markets for social robotics solutions. We are aiming at commercialising ~10,000+ Furhat robots by 2023, generating €30m in annual revenues. Long-term, we believe we can become the next Swedish & European unicorn company, exceeding the €1bn valuation.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/858896
Start date: 01-05-2019
End date: 30-04-2021
Total budget - Public funding: 3 228 000,00 Euro - 2 259 600,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

Interacting with AI by talking is becoming increasingly common. Today we can order food, find out currency exchange rates & get answers to FAQs by messaging bots running in Facebook, WhatsApp or Telegram. Virtual assistants like Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa or Yandex Alisa migrate from smartphones to smart speakers in our living rooms.
Simultaneously we are witnessing the emergence of social robots—a new class of robots for whom social interaction plays the key role.
A social robot is a robot that can show emotions, have capabilities to converse on an advanced level, understands the mental models of its social partners, forms social relationships, makes use of natural communication cues, shows personality & learns social capabilities . In essence, a social robot = robot or AI + social interface.
There are serious technological problems to broad acceptance of social robots & the main one is the non-realistic interactions.
At Furhat Robotics we are developing the 1st scalable social robotics platform. Furhat, the robot built on this platform, is a fully programmable social robot capable of expressing a broad range of emotions & carrying out a realistic conversation with humans.
We have sold 80+ Furhats to 50+ customers—Disney, Intel, Merck, KPMG, Swedbank, Deutsche Telekom, Honda & others. Finally, we are an official partner of the Dubai Expo2020 exhibition.
In total we have generated €2.1m in early revenues. In Sep 2017 we raised €2.13m of venture capital from Balderton Capital & LocalGlobe (both from the UK).
We are aiming at creating completely new markets for social robotics solutions. We are aiming at commercialising ~10,000+ Furhat robots by 2023, generating €30m in annual revenues. Long-term, we believe we can become the next Swedish & European unicorn company, exceeding the €1bn valuation.

Status

CLOSED

Call topic

EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020

Update Date

26-10-2022
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Horizon 2020
H2020-EU.2. INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP
H2020-EU.2.1. INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies
H2020-EU.2.1.0. INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Cross-cutting calls
H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020
H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-2
H2020-EU.2.3. INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs
H2020-EU.2.3.0. INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs - Cross-cutting calls
H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020
H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-2
H2020-EU.3. SOCIETAL CHALLENGES
H2020-EU.3.0. Cross-cutting call topics
H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020
H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-2