Skyline Robotics Completes $3.35M Funding Round
The company makes robotic window cleaning systems for high-rise buildings.
Skyline robotics, which makes automated systems for cleaning exterior windows on high-rise buildings, announced that it had closed a $3.35 million funding round. With previous rounds, the company says that it has raised in all $12 million.
“Skyline’s successful funding round comes on the heels of the company being granted key patents in Japan and Singapore for its Ozmo window-cleaning platform,” the firm said. “Skyline Robotics is in the midst of a worldwide expansion with the first robots already deployed in New York City and go-to-market strategies now being put into action for various major cities on a global scale.”
The Ozmo system combines, as one familiar with technical announcements might expect, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and light detection and ranging, known as LiDAR, with robotics and sensors. All would be necessary to allow a robot to clean a window.
A YouTube video shows the system working on buildings in Tel Aviv and Manhattan. A mechanical arm — sometimes by itself and others paired with a second device on the same type of vertical platform that human window washers might use — moves up and down as well as back and forth.
The company claims that its system can wash windows in a third the time as humans can. There are human operators working from above and not on the platform. They can shut down the machine at any time.
Robotic systems and sensors can measure how much pressure is necessary to clean effectively without damaging the glass.
The AI system apparently helps the system remain stable even with wind gusts. The machine recalculates its cleaning path “hundreds of times a second.”
“With buildings becoming taller, more complex, and more valuable, the demand for convenient and proper facade maintenance increases as well. Ozmo provides a future-friendly, transparent, and detail-focused solution for various clients, ranging from maintenance companies to property managers and owners,” the company claims on its website. “Trained and certified professionals from an authorized network of operators work together with Ozmo on implementing a premium end-to-end service.”
One of the selling points used by Skyline is that window washers are aging out of the industry. The company says that 75% of window washers in the U.S. are over 40 and that only 9% are between 9%. However, it doesn’t note where the figures come from.