VentureBeat

Robots are more popular than ever, from the iRobot Roomba vacuum robot to the new Sony Rolly music-playing, egg-shaped robot. Ugobe, the maker of the cute dinosaur robot Pleo, is cashing in on the craze by raising a new round of venture capital, VentureBeat has learned.

Emeryville, Calif.-based Ugobe has raised $12.8 million in a third round of financing to expand its robot beyond Pleo, said the company’s chief executive, Bob Christopher.

The company’s robot team is headed by chairman Caleb Chung, co-creator of the Furby talking dolls that have sold more than 50 million units. Chung’s team created a sophisticated artificial intelligence system as the brains behind Pleo, a dinosaur whose aim is to illicit emotional responses from people.

Pleo has a lot of sophisticated hardware, including 14 motors, 38 sensors, two ARM7 microprocessors, and five other microprocessors. It’s loaded up on features, but it isn’t cheap.

It remains to be seen whether Pleo can become a smash hit. Another company, WowWee, is betting that price point can move consumers more than brains. It’s creating its own pet-style robots at much lower prices than Ugobe. So we should soon have an answer to the question of whether consumers prefer cute and affordable over expensive, but smart and lifelike.

Pleo started selling for $349 when it came out in December, making it a hefty purchase that appealed mainly to robot hobbyists. The company has sold more than 50,000 to date, Christopher said. The relatively low sales numbers are one reason the venture capital will come in handy.

The company has issued a couple of software upgrades and continuously adds new programs to help Pleo behave more and more intelligently. Christopher said Ugobe, which currently employs 40 people, will expand product development, looking beyond Pleo to future robots. The company’s already got much of the hardest work of creating a system for a lifelike robot behind it, Christopher said.

The company has steadily been adding new markets and will continue to expand geographically. More than 14,000 people have signed up on the company’s community web site, dubbed Pleo World.

Hyield Venture Capital Company, a division of Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group, led the round. Other investors include Chauncey Shey of Frontier Management Group in Shanghai, China, and Maxima Capital, headed by Max Fang, who started the Asia operations for Dell. To date, Ugobe has raised $24 million.

Robots aren’t just for hobbyists anymore. The programmable gadgets have taken off thanks to the efforts of tech-oriented companies such as WowWee, Sony, Ugobe and LEGO. But the market may be ready for a whole new level as Disney enters the market tomorrow.

Disney Consumer Products is announcing Wednesday that it will make programmable toy robots based on Disney characters, with the first robot debuting at Maker Faire, a geek fest at the San Mateo Fairgrounds in San Mateo, Calif., this weekend. We can thank a new Pixar movie coming this summer for Disney’s decision to bless this market.

Partners include Disney’s Pixar animated film division, Thinkway Toys and WowWee. The toys will talk, dance, fly, respond to commands, and track motion.

The toys are inspired by “WALL·E,”  the cute robot (sort of like a clone of E.T.) from the Disney-Pixar film coming this summer. Another robot will be based on Tinker Bell the fairy from “Peter Pan.”

The Ultimate WALL·E robotic toy and the iDance WALL·E dancing boombox will debut in June; the remote control Tinker Bell flying toy will be available this fall. Disney hasn’t been a player in robot toys, but it did invest in entertainment robotics in the 1960s when it put Audio-Animatronics technology into its theme parks, particularly Disneyland’s Enchanted Tiki Room. (And who could forget good old Abe Lincoln at the “Great Moments With Lincoln” exhibit in Disneyland — oops, I’m showing my age).

Designed by Disney, Pixar animators and Thinkway, the Ultimate WALL·E robot has 10 motors for lifelike movement. With voice activation and a follow-me mode, WALL·E can follow the sound of a human voice and detect someone entering a room. The robot has a variety of sensors that let it hear, navigate, and detect obstacles. It will sell for $189.99. The iDance WALL·E has USB ports, can play MP3 music, and has an audio in-jack that works with any iPod or MP3 player. It will sell for $24.99.

Disney worked with WowWee to make the flying Tinker Bell toy robot, based on WowWee’s FlyTech technology. It will sell for $39.99 starting this fall. Beyond toys, robots are taking off in other respects. Microsoft launched a software development kit for programmable robots. Sony introduced its Rolly spinning toy robot, even though it discontinued its expensive Aibo robots. And iRobot is for both hobbyists and household cleaning applications.