GROOVE X

What GROOVE X does

GROOVE X is a Tokyo-headquartered Japanese robotics company founded in November 2015 by Kaname Hayashi that designs, develops, and sells LOVOT, a family-type companion robot positioned as the world's first "Slow-Relation Robot." Rather than performing tasks, LOVOT is engineered around a proprietary "Well-being Technology" philosophy that combines bio-inspired articulated motion, tactile warmth, and multi-sensor response (touch, sound, movement) to nurture long-term emotional bonds with users. The robot incorporates speech recognition and verbal dialogue for social interaction, and the company has published observational research suggesting LOVOT owners exhibit higher baseline urinary oxytocin levels than non-owners.

The company's commercial product portfolio is intentionally narrow: the core LOVOT consumer robot launched in 2019 and is sold in Japan through proprietary physical retail stores staffed by specialists and the lovot.life e-commerce site; a corporate variant, OFFICE LOVOT, is sold to enterprise customers through a dedicated B2B sales channel. Targeted customer segments span individual Japanese families seeking emotional companionship, corporate wellness buyers, and healthcare/elderly-care institutions (evidenced by a UC Davis MIND Institute pediatric anxiety study). Revenue is generated primarily through hardware sales at undisclosed unit pricing, with no subscription or software-revenue stream disclosed in available data.

GROOVE X is venture-backed (private, not listed), with cumulative disclosed funding of approximately $99.4M across five rounds from 2016 through 2020. Its investor base skews heavily toward Japanese strategic corporates and government-backed funds, including Mirai Creation Fund, Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), SPARX Group, Chubu Electric Power, Hitachi Global Life Solutions, NTT DoCoMo, and Sompo Holdings. The company has won the Best Robot of CES 2019 award (The Verge) and the Cool Japan Award 2019, and employs 288 staff (including contract and part-time) at its headquarters in the Sumitomo Fudosan Hamacho Building in Nihonbashi-Hamacho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo.

Name

GROOVE X

Legal name

GROOVE X株式会社

Website

https://groove-x.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

GROOVE X designs, manufactures, and sells LOVOT, a Japan-based family-type companion robot that uses tactile warmth, bio-inspired motion, and verbal interaction to form emotional bonds rather than perform tasks, sold primarily through proprietary retail stores and an enterprise variant called OFFICE LOVOT.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Consumer Robotics

SIC

Dolls & Stuffed Toys (3942)

akta.pro primary industry

Home Companion & Social Robots (CRACARAE)

akta.pro secondary industries

Healthcare & Assistive Robotics (HDAAAIAC), Robot Software, Autonomy Stacks & Simulation (ROS, digital twins) (HDAAAIAK)

Keywords

• Companion robots
• Consumer robotics
• Social robots
• Emotional robotics
• Family robots

Headquarters

HQ city

Tokyo

HQ country

Japan

HQ region

Asia

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Hardware or Manufacturing

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Supply Chain, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. LOVOT Robot Sales: Sale of the LOVOT companion robot to consumers and enterprises. The robot was launched in 2019. Hardware sales represent the primary revenue stream.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

GROOVE X designs, develops, manufactures, and sells LOVOT, a family-type companion robot positioned as the world's first 'Slow-Relation Robot.' The robot uses proprietary well-being technology with comforting tactile warmth and nuanced responsiveness to cultivate emotional bonds over time. The company sells directly to consumers through proprietary retail stores and the lovot.life e-commerce website, and to enterprises through the OFFICE LOVOT program.

Product overview

GROOVE X offers a single unified product portfolio centered on the LOVOT family-type companion robot. The core product is LOVOT, a home robot launched in 2019 that represents the 'Slow-Relation Type' category of home robots. The company also provides OFFICE LOVOT as a corporate variant for business use. The product ecosystem is built around emotional well-being and companionship, differentiating from entertainment, practical/task, and social communication robots.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• LOVOT: A family-type home robot that nurtures love. Positioned as a 'slow-relation robot' powered by well-being technology, designed to form emotional bonds with users over time through comforting tactile warmth and nuanced responsiveness.

Quantifiable outcome

• Observational study shows LOVOT owners have higher baseline urinary oxytocin levels compared to non-owners, suggesting affiliative relationships can form between humans and companion robots
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers1 record

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability4 records

Feature5 records

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Sony (Aibo): Sony's Aibo is the most directly comparable consumer companion robot on the market — a pet-like autonomous home robot designed for emotional bonding rather than task utility. Both target affluent consumers seeking companionship, sell at premium price points, and rely on continuous learning to deepen user attachment over time.
• Anki: Anki (Vector, Cozmo) created affordable AI companion robots positioned as emotional sidekicks for the home. While Anki ceased operations in 2019, it remains the most comparable historical example of a venture-backed consumer companion robot startup targeting similar use cases to LOVOT.
• Embodied (Moxie): Embodied's Moxie is an AI-powered companion robot designed for emotional engagement and child development, with a focus on therapeutic and educational outcomes. Like LOVOT, Moxie targets family households and uses conversational AI to form attachment, with recent pivots toward healthcare and special-needs applications.
• Intuition Robotics (ElliQ): Intuition Robotics' ElliQ is an AI companion designed for elderly users to reduce loneliness and support independent living — directly overlapping with LOVOT's elderly-care customer segment. Both target emotional wellness rather than task completion and pursue healthcare and aging-population use cases.

Broad incumbents

• SoftBank Robotics (Pepper): Pepper is SoftBank's humanoid social robot deployed in retail, healthcare, and hospitality settings globally. While broader in scope and more humanoid in form than LOVOT, it overlaps in the social-companionship and enterprise-wellness spaces, with SoftBank's massive distribution reach making it a key adjacent competitor.
• Hanson Robotics (Sophia): Hanson Robotics develops humanoid social robots for customer service, healthcare, and education applications. It shares GROOVE X's positioning of robots as social/emotional companions rather than industrial tools, but with a broader enterprise and research focus and greater global brand visibility.
• UBTECH Robotics: UBTECH is a leading consumer humanoid and educational robot manufacturer (Alpha series, Cruzr) with global distribution. While broader in product line and more humanoid in form, it competes in the home-companion and educational-robotics space that LOVOT also addresses.

Emerging players

• Aeolus Robotics: Aeolus Robotics develops dual-arm humanoid service robots for home assistance, particularly targeting elderly care markets in Japan and Asia. It overlaps with GROOVE X's eldercare ambitions while taking a more utilitarian task-completion approach rather than the pure emotional-bonding proposition.
• Catalia Health (Mabu): Catalia Health's Mabu is a healthcare-focused companion robot that supports chronic disease patients with daily check-ins and emotional engagement. It shares GROOVE X's healthcare-deployment model (e.g., UC Davis MIND Institute) and emotional-bonding differentiation.
• Blue Frog Robotics (Buddy): Blue Frog Robotics' Buddy is an emotional companion robot for the home targeting family and eldercare use cases. Its positioning around emotional engagement and family interaction overlaps with LOVOT, though it takes a more affordable, utility-hybrid approach.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/groovexinc
• Facebookfacebook.com/GROOVEX.Robot

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds5 records

Investors17 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about GROOVE X