Robots should be cleaning your home

Dmitry Grishin founded investment firm Grishin Robotics in New York earlier this year. He is also CEO of Russian internet company Mail.ru and studied robotics at Moscow State University

Internet entrepreneurs like Elon Musk are now investing in spaceflight. Why are you putting $25 million into robots?
It was always my passion. I studied robotics at university. I was excited about what robots can bring to society. But one of the biggest problems 10 to 20 years ago was that it was very expensive. Now because of new technology ? including smartphones ? a lot of components have become very cheap. You can spend a few thousand dollars and build robots.

Is anything else making now a good time to be building robots?
3D-printing. If you start a robotics company, you need to prototype the robot before bringing it to market. Historically, prototyping was very expensive. Using 3D printing you can do initial testing much more cheaply.

Why are you focusing on personal, rather than factory, robots?
I have a belief that if you want to have a big technological revolution, you need to bring products to the mass market. For ages, computer power was hidden in big mainframe computers. When the product is hidden, no one cares. It's the same with robots: they have been hidden in factories for 20 years. Once in the home, the tech becomes visible. People see it every day, children see it, people get inspired.

Your first investment was $250,000, in a California-based firm called Double Robotics, that builds a wheeled robot to turn iPads into telepresence systems. Why this company?
I really believe that for mass markets it is important that robots should look beautiful. I see a lot of companies that try to do robots and they look ugly. Double Robotics' robots look beautiful. Also, if you want robots to go to mass market, the price is very important. It is difficult to sell one for $20,000. I want the price to be acceptable for every home.

And what about your most recent investment, the Robot-App Store?
This company creates a community of people making software around robots. This is important for a robot ecosystem. The more features robots have, the better it is for consumers. If your iPhone can do only two things, it is less usable; with thousands of apps, you have lots of opportunities for features. The same goes for robots. If you extend their functionality, it creates much bigger opportunities to find customers.

Do we all really need a robot?
There are a lot of tasks they can help with. Telepresence robots bring opportunities for doctors, travellers and business people. There are also domestic robots that can do a lot of stuff that is difficult or not interesting. If you look around, you see how many repetitious tasks people are doing that it would be much better for a robot to do: cleaning the house, washing a window, bringing something to your home.

As an ex-roboticist, how do you feel about being an investor in robotics rather than a robot builder?
It is important to have investment and I am really proud that I can help. I also bring my business experience. I see a lot of people with cool tech but sometimes they don't know how to apply it to business.

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