Sunday reaches $1.15 billion valuation to deploy Memo household robot across real homes

Humanoid maker Sunday reaches $1.15 billion valuation to build household robots | TechCrunch

Robotics company Sunday has raised a new funding round that has valued the company at unicorn status, meaning over $1 billion, it announced on Thursday. Sunday says it has raised a $165 million a $1.15 billion valuation in a Series B round led by Coatue Management. Other investors in the round include Tiger Global, Benchmark, and Bain Capital Ventures. The company emerged from stealth late last year and already has 1,000 people on its waitlist, Bloomberg reports. Sunday, founded by Tony Zhao and Cheng Chi, is on a quest to build a household humanoid called Memo that helps with tasks like laundry and clearing the table. Experts have been trying for decades to build a robot like this -- a type of Rosie from "The Jetsons" -- but have come up short time and again, in large part because of a lack of training data to teach robots how to reliably grasp objects of differing weights, textures and fragility (think: towels versus wine glasses). As AI technology continues to advance, a new slew of robotic technologies is hitting the market, hoping to once again bring the humanoid helper to life.

Sunday raises $165M at $1.15B valuation to launch Memo household robot - SiliconANGLE

Sunday raises $165M at $1.15B valuation to launch Memo household robot Helpful home robots startup Sunday Inc. announced today that it had raised $165 million in new funding on a $1.15 billion valuation to scale research and begin real-world deployment of its Memo home robot. Founded in 2023, Sunday is developing autonomous robots that are designed to perform routine household tasks by combining artificial intelligence with physical manipulation systems. The company's approach focuses on allowing robots to operate in real home environments where objects, layouts and tasks vary widely. Sunday does so by collecting large volumes of real-world task data and using that data to train models capable of executing everyday activities such as handling dishes, clearing surfaces and organizing items. The system Sunday is building works through a combination of robotic hardware, perception systems and machine learning models trained on motion data captured from humans. A core component called the Skill Capture Glove records the movements of a person performing a task, with the recordings then converted into structured datasets that train robotic models responsible for grasping objects, recognizing environments and executing sequences of actions. The company's first product, the Memo home robot, is designed to carry out common household workflows, with the robot able to identify objects in a kitchen or dining area, pick them up using articulated manipulators and place them into appliances such as dishwashers or storage locations. Under the hood, the software coordinates perception, object recognition and motion planning so that the system can complete multistep tasks involving fragile items, variable object placement and cluttered surfaces. Data generated during operation can also be used to refine models and expand the set of tasks the robot can perform. Differing from other robotics startups that tend to focus on industrial or workplace applications, Sunday is aiming for residential deployment, where robots must function in unstructured environments rather than controlled industrial settings. Tasks targeted by the system include food preparation cleanup, dish handling and general home organization. Early deployments are expected to occur through pilot installations in households where the robots operate continuously while collecting additional operational data that informs further model training and system updates. The Series B funding round was led by Coatue Management, with Bain Capital Ventures, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Tiger Global Management, Benchmark Capital Management Company, Conviction Capital and Xtal Ventures also participating. "We raised our Series B to stop giving demos. Now, we're focusing entirely on deployment, with beta deliveries starting in just months," said Tony Zhao, chief executive officer of Sunday. "Data has always been the biggest bottleneck in robotics. We built the only pipeline that turns the complexity of real-world homes into autonomous intelligence at scale." The new funding takes the total amount raised by Sunday to $200 million, with the company previously raising $35 million from Benchmark and Conviction in November.