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Romotive’s unique iPhone/iPod-controlled robots are shown in different colors, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011.
Saturday, March 16, 2013 | 2 a.m.
In a move that some will see as a blow to the growing Las Vegas tech community, Romotive, a personal robotics company that quickly saw its fortunes rise after moving to the city in 2011, is leaving for the Bay Area.
The company’s CEO, Keller Rinaudo, sent an email to downtown’s tech community, including Vegas Tech Fund, which invested $500,000 in the company early on, announcing the company’s departure.
Neither Rinaudo nor a company spokeswoman responded to inquiries from the Sun.
Zach Ware, a VegasTechFund partner, said he ws sad to see his friends leave town. At the same time, Ware said he didn't see the announcement as hurting the tech movement downtown that he and others are vigorously supporting.
“I’m super energized about what’s happening here,” Ware said. “We understood (Rinaudo) making a decision he thought was important for his company.”
Ware said he understood how people might jump to conclusions and see the move as a negative for downtown. However, he said, “If you have the full perspective of what’s happening in the tech community, you won’t see it that way.”
“With what we’ve been doing in the last year, I’m inspired every day about what’s going on,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a negative. And the influence and positivity (Romotive) brought here was definitely a positive for the community.”
Rinaudo wrote the reason behind the move, which will take place over the next three months, was the company’s desire to be closer to the large pool of tech-savvy operators in the Silicon Valley.
In his email, Rinaudo said the company’s goal was to build the first affordable personal robot.
“It’s my responsibility to make sure that Romotive is located where we are most likely to achieve this vision,” he wrote. He also said the company wanted to be close to “strategic partners and hiring brilliant senior talent that can take our robotics focus to the next level.”
Las Vegas’ tech community is a baby relative to the decades-old Silicon Valley in the Bay Area. The California tech hub also is near a wealth of universities that pump out thousands of tech-ready graduates. By comparison, Nevada’s four-year, public universities pale in both size and number of graduates.
Rinaudo credited Las Vegas with providing fertile ground for the company, whose three founders moved here in 2011 with the idea of creating a small robot that can be operated by someone with a smartphone. By attaching a phone to “Romo,” the company’s robot, someone else halfway around the world can maneuver Romo with another smartphone or computer and see what Romo sees.
“This was a difficult decision for us because Romotive wouldn’t be the company we are without the constant support of Downtown Project, Tony (Hsieh, Zappos CEO and VegasTechFund partner), Fred (Mosler, also with Zappos and a VegasTechFund partner) and many others,” Rinaudo wrote.
VegasTechFund was founded after Zappos announced its move from Henderson to downtown Las Vegas in late 2010. This fall, Zappos is relocating about 1,300 employees downtown into the old City Hall building at Stewart Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard.
Hsieh and others also created Downtown Project, which will invest $350 million downtown in education, small business, tech and other areas. The move has spurred growth and more interest in tech startup companies in the area.
For more than a year, Romotive operated out of condos in the Ogden. Last March, when U.S. Sen. Harry Reid stopped by the Ogden to visit Hsieh at his condo, a Romotive employee showed Reid how the robot worked.
Reid marveled at the device, mentioning how one day something like that could perhaps be “weaponized.”
Romotive now employs at least 20 people; a plant in China now manufactures the tiny robot. Rinaudo wrote that the company has signed its single largest order for 10,000 Romos.
A few weeks ago, Rinaudo was a featured speaker at an annual TED Talks conference, which was simulcast in the Downtown Project’s Construction Zone trailers downtown. Romotive employees who watched high-fived one another when Rinaudo came on screen to give his talk or when other speakers mentioned the potential upside of the business of personal robotics.
Despite his departure from Las Vegas, Rinaudo said he believed Hsieh "will succeed in building the downtown area into a bright tech ecosystem.”
Romotive’s departure follows news in February when ecomom.com, one of the first startups VegasTechFund invested in, liquidated and went out of business. Ecomom CEO Jody Sherman took his own life in January.
Joe Schoenmann doesn’t just cover downtown, he lives and works there. Schoenmann is Greenspun Media Group’s embedded downtown journalist, working from an office in the Emergency Arts building.
Lets see $500,000 invested and is built in China? Seems reasonable.
Sounds like he came for the money but never was committed to Las Vegas. Shame, but if the Vegas Tech fund people dont have a problem with it then why should I.
"Rinaudo wrote the reason behind the move, which will take place over the next three months, was the company's desire to be closer to the large pool of tech-savvy operators in the Silicon Valley."
OK, that makes sense, but then why did he come to Vegas in the first place? Makes me wonder if this wasn't the plan all along. Take the $500,000 and run...
Have fun paying exorbitant rent in the Bay Area. And you will be trading taking a plane every once in a while to being stuck in traffic on 101 every friggin' day of your existence.
Anyone is free to move themselves, or their business, anywhere they like. That said, this tale sounds remarkably similar to any of the other hundreds of thousands of individuals and/or companies that have moved to Las Vegas in order to take something from the city, only to leave when whatever it is has been achieved. I have been told countless times, "I'm only here to make a bundle of cash and move on." Draw your own conclusions.
Looks like total usury to me. The company stays for little more than a year and receive $500,000 towards their efforts to get their company going. Now that they feel they have something to move forward on, they head to greener pastures. I say if it's still possible all of the money ought to taken back from them. Unless their is some type of collusion where the powers that be who gave them the money got some kind of kickback, I don't see how they wouldn't be upset and do something about it. Once word gets around I'm sure other tech start ups will come here to get their seed money and pretend that they like the city and want to stay before high tailing out of town after a year or two. Another banner for Vegas to carry " Tech Start up rape capital of the world " Come punk us for a year we don't mind" Really!
What? A company leaving a tax haven like Nevada for a high-tax state like California? Come on, anti-tax, anti-spend conservatives, how is this possible? It's not as though the quality of an education system could have anything to do with affecting corporate ideas about a good relocation destination.
This highlights the challenges that the Vegas Tech scene will face. First and foremost talented people with tech back grounds are not going to relocate to Vegas. Secondly if these individuals have families it will be an even harder sell because most people with kids will never live here. If anything this city will be a stepping stone for emerging tech companies, sort of like a minor league baseball team.
Agree,
We need Toyota not a toy maker.
Flame out.
Their Vegas Tech Fund $500,000 grant was from Tony Hseih, not the city, state or Federal government. If Hseih was too stupid to write contracts to have a minimum residency requirement in Downtown Las Vegas or require the mini robot designers to return the half Million before they realized just having cocktails is not real professional synergy, oh well.
"most people with kids will never live here." <-- You realize this is easily and empirically proven incorrect, right?
"most people with kids will never live here." <-- You realize this is easily and empirically proven incorrect, right?
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Well, I think a lot of professionals that value their own children's education might give pause to moving here. It's really not a conducive environment to raising a family. Too many vices and a utterly terrible public school system. I know there's going to be those that raised a family here to take offense but if you are putting your child in one of the public schools here I don't care how much you are on top of them...chances are they are in a classroom surrounded by too many that simply don't value education. That bleeds off, I don't care how diligent you are in your child's education.