Avidbots, a Kitchener-based robotics company, has partnered with support services provider HHS to bring Avidbot’s autonomous floor scrubber robot to a number of hospitals across the US.
HHS is a leading American provider of support services to healthcare, resort, senior living, aviation, education, and government industries. HHS provides housekeeping, food service, laundry, facilities management, operations, and other services to over 500 customers in the US and internationally.
“HHS is the first healthcare services support company to partner with Avidbots at scale.”
Through the partnership, Avidbots stated that it will provide “multiple” floor scrubbing robots, dubbed Neo, to HHS for use in acute care hospitals. The company said that HHS has already deployed seven of the AI-powered robots initially and is looking to expand into several more hospitals in the coming months.
“HHS is the first healthcare services support company to partner with Avidbots at scale, and we couldn’t have asked for a more innovative, forward-thinking partner in the healthcare space,” said Faizan Sheikh, CEO and co-founder of Avidbots. “Neo will enable HHS to continue to add value to their customers, freeing up maintenance crews to focus on higher-value work such as cleaning patient rooms, nurse stations, and waiting areas.”
The partnership follows Avidbots’ $31.5 million CAD Series B funding round, which closed in March. Sheikh told BetaKit at the time that the goal of the raise was to help the startup with the global expansion of its robots.
According to the Kitchener-based company, HHS is one of the only healthcare services companies to deploy floor-cleaning robots in facilities, at scale. “Various hospital groups have trialed delivery and cleaning robots, however, HHS will be one of the first to deploy such a large fleet of cleaning robots in hospitals nationwide,” Avidbots stated.
“We chose Avidbots’ Neo as we felt the innovative technology and safety features, combined with the superior level of direct support, were a winning combination,” said Bobby Floyd, CEO of HHS’s healthcare division. “Our customers are excited to have Neo in their facilities and HHS has been able to hit our target ROI in the deployments.”
While Neo is already in a number of hospitals, Avidbots noted that HHS may also deploy additional robots in airports as part of its recently-expanded aviation division.
Image courtesy Avidbots via Twitter