XTEND, an Israeli developer of XOS, an AI-driven operating system that is revolutionising the way humans interact with drones and robots, has secured $40 million in a Series B funding round. The investment was led by Chartered Group, with participation from its existing and new strategic investors, including Clal-Tech.
The new funding will further develop XTEND’s proprietary XOS operating system and its application in various time-consuming, dangerous enterprise and security scenarios worldwide. The company will also ramp up global sales of its own drones and robotics products.
AI-driven drone and robot OS
Founded by Aviv Shapira, Rubi Liani, Matteo Shapira, and Adir Tubi, XTEND provides a revolutionary human-supervised, AI-driven drone and robot operating system that enables operators to perform highly complex and dynamic missions in any environment with minimal training.
When drones and robots are controlled by its XOS operating system, which fuses the best of human intelligence and machine autonomy, it provides a new way for logistics, public safety, inspection, defense, and security professionals to interact with machines effectively from a safe distance.
Unleashes human-machine partnership
Hundreds of XTEND’s drone and robotics systems are already operationally deployed worldwide, and the company is continuously developing its XOS operating system and those platforms to deliver the future of human-machine teaming. XOS is hardware agnostic, which allows it to control all sorts of platforms, including third party devices, complement existing technology, or create entirely new systems from scratch. XOS’s open architecture means that it can host applications developed by other companies, too.
XOS will allow XTEND’s drones to be deployed remotely by military units in various scenarios precisely, intuitively, and immersively. It has been developed for multiple markets, including logistics, public safety, inspection, and security. The US Department of Defense Special Forces and Israel’s Ministry of Defense tier-1 units have also chosen XTEND for multiple multi-million-dollar programs to develop and deliver its systems for operational evaluation, so the company’s technology is already being used by some of the best in the business.
Aviv Shapira, co-founder, and CEO, said: “Robots and drones promise to transform everything from factories to our homes. However, a significant hurdle remains – equipping them with the common-sense abilities to deal with the unpredictable nature of real-world situations, understand their surroundings, and make decisions based on that information. XOS uses AI to enable robots to learn from data and experience. Training them to identify objects, navigate complex environments, and interact with humans safely. We are unlocking the true potential of robotics in complex scenarios, including first response, search and rescue, logistics, critical infrastructure inspection, defense, and security.”
Matteo Shapira, co-founder, and CXO, added: “Unlike self-driving cars, which operate in a world with mostly known rules and scenarios, XTEND specialises in enabling operations in “hypervariable” environments. Take a last-mile delivery robot. It can navigate autonomously indoors and outdoors but might need human help finding an office building entrance or understanding floor layouts to reach the elevator or stairway. These environments present limitless situations with the potential for the unexpected, requiring human-level decision-making skills specific to each profession. XTEND’s core technology, XOS, is built around this human-machine partnership. We are continually adding new “AI SKILLS” to our system, and those skills will allow robots to handle a growing portion of missions and tasks, freeing up human supervisors to manage more missions simultaneously, at scale.”
Eyal Agmoni, Founder and Chairman of Chartered Group, said: “We believe that the companies bringing the value of AI to massive and complex industries, such as robotics and drone operations, will be the tech giants of the 21st century. Having observed XTEND’s remarkable achievements thus far, we truly believe in the company’s potential to become the world leader in robotics and drone operations, and AI.”
