Russian start-up raises $500K for its talking robot, considers sales in English-speaking countries

Cubic Robotics, a Russian start-up developing robots that can communicate with their owners, has raised $500,000 and seeks ways of adapting its products to English-speaking markets

Cubic Robotics, a Russian start-up developing robots that can communicate with their owners, has raised $500,000 in its second round of funding from a private investor, East-West Digital News, the first all English-language online resource dedicated to Russian digital industries, reported earlier this week, citing Russian news agency RIA Novosti. The financial injection came from Konstantin Senchenko, a Russian businessman who earlier helped the startup with $100,000 in seed capital. With a total of $600,000 in investment as of today, Cubic Robotics expects to keep developing its robot designated ?Cubic,? adapting it to English-speaking markets. The Cubic is designed for home use and can recognize human speech, answer questions it is asked, search for information in the Internet and even ?read? text out loud. It is also said to be able to control ?smart home? systems and have the functions of a personal digital assistant (PDA) ? a valuable extra for a robotic device which its developer is gearing towards serial production in the foreseeable future...