Company
Petoi is the maker of futuristic programmable robotic pets and the developer of OpenCat, the open-source quadruped robot platform. Its mission is to bring sophisticated, affordable, and cute robotic pets from fiction to reality.
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Petoi started as OpenCat, the founder Rongzhong Li's viral open-source robotic pet project in 2016. The project eventually had a successful crowdfunding campaign for its first product robot cat Nybble on Indiegogo in 2018 and the product delivery in 2019. In Oct 2020, Petoi's second product robot dog Bittle successfully raised $567k on Kickstarter and has started the shipment in Dec 2020.
The unique value propositions of Petoi's robots:
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​innovative
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cute
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world's first palm-sized robot dog
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realistic, lifelike
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can run, walk, self-balance like a real animal
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can be programmed to do amazing tricks, and perform instinctive and sophisticated movements
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with its customized Arduino board coordinating all instinctive and sophisticated movements, one can clip on various sensors to bring in perception and inject artificial intelligence capabilities by mounting a Raspberry Pi or other AI chips through wired/wireless connections
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great quadrupled robot kit for robotics research or STEM education
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affordable comparing to existing robot pets that cost thousands of dollars
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Thus, Petoi has earned acclaims from the Arduino, Raspberry Pi communities and major media coverage from around the globe.
TEAM
Rongzhong Li
Founder & CEO
Rz is a physics PhD and computer science master. He was previously an educator at Wake Forest University.
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Rz is a maker, photographer, poet, interdisciplinary explorer.
Kai Mai
COO
Former VP of Engineering at ALO7. Former president of Berkeley Chinese Alumni International Association(BCAIA) and CMU Alumni Network – Shanghai Chapter. Co-president of BCAIA Silicon Valley Chapter. Co-founder of Cal Startup Network.
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Over 19 years of product management/development and engineering experiences across the USA and China. Entrepreneurial executive with proven track records in the Internet and education space.
Jason Yu
PCB Designer
PhD student in computer vision.
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Jian has a ton of experience working in the embedded system industry and skilled in hardware design. Jason has strong interests in robotics.