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Romo

Romo the smartphone robot raises $1.5M, seeks world domination

Here's a novel way to pitch potential investors: "Do you realize how young we are? Do you realize that we're going to f**k up big time?!"

And yet, that's exactly how Keller Rinaudo, the 24-year-old co-founder and CEO of robot maker Romotive, began his meetings with investors last fall. The upshot: Success way beyond what he had ever imagined.

Rinaudo recently closed a $1.5 million first round of funding, three times what the company set out to raise when it began looking for backers. Among the investors are Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, the … Read more

Hands-on with Romo: Make your smartphone a spying robot

LAS VEGAS--Romo, a playful robot that uses a smartphone as its brains, is on a roll.

The startup behind Romo, called Romotive, is just eight months old and investors have been eager to back it.

CEO and co-founder Keller Rinaudo told me that the company just closed its first major round of funding, taking an undisclosed amount from Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, the Stanford University endowment and several angel investors.

Romo uses the power of a smart phone's microprocessor. You dock one device--say, an iPod Touch--onto the base, turning it into the robot. Then, from a second device--say, your … Read more