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Machani Robotics

Machani Robotics

Manufacturer

Machani Robotics builds RIA, a conversational social humanoid with a 32-DOF expressive face for elder care, education and clinical training pilots.

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Company Overview

Machani Robotics is a social robotics company that develops RIA, a companion humanoid designed for emotional engagement rather than physical work. The company describes itself as part of a self-funded venture studio founded by serial entrepreneur Ravi Machani, and press coverage describes it as a spin-off of Machani Group, an Indian family business group with close to a century of history. According to Diario Financiero, work on RIA began around 2018 and Machani Robotics was spun off in 2020, with about 10 million US dollars invested in developing the prototype. Its leadership team listed on the company website includes Ravi Machani (founder), Ganapathy R. Golikere (CFO), Aswin Chandarr (Head of Engineering, PhD in robotics from Delft), Rahul Chatterjee (COO) and Mark Pinnes (Senior Vice President, Partnerships).

RIA is a head-and-torso humanoid with a realistic face. Press reports, including Interesting Engineering and coverage of the company's partnership with Hanson Robotics (developer of Sophia), describe 32 degrees of freedom in the face and head, enabling more than 100 distinct facial expressions. Its sensor suite includes a dual 4K camera setup for object recognition, a thermal camera for detecting temperature variations and identifying people, and 360-degree microphone arrays that let the robot turn toward a speaker; an Intel RealSense depth camera has also been reported. The software combines computer vision, speech recognition, voice generation and conversational AI, and the robot is described as multilingual, with reports of 16 to 17 supported languages and real-time translation. The company states RIA can run for more than 17 hours of continuous uptime, detects mood shifts and adapts tone and content. RIA does not perform manipulation tasks; a company executive told Diario Financiero it will not make tea or give medication. Machani plans to lease the robot on a subscription model rather than sell it outright.

RIA has been used in several pilots. At the University of California San Diego Division of Extended Studies, RIA played patients in the English Language Institute's Medical English course so international students could practise doctor-patient communication, described as the first robotic classroom experience on the UCSD campus. Since June 2025 RIA has been based at the AI Innovation Hub of the Golisano Institute in Rochester, New York, under a business-in-residence arrangement, where it acts as a hesitant customer in sales simulations and as an interviewer in mock job interviews. The company also cites work with Scripps Health on patient education and documentation burden, programmes for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities at First Place and TERi, and a debut at Singularity Summit Chile in June 2025. Partners named on its website include Deka Research, Abundance360, NVIDIA, the Golisano Institute, Scripps and UC San Diego Health.

Target markets are assisted living and skilled nursing (companionship, mood monitoring, guided breathing and mindfulness), education and special-needs support, healthcare workflows, and speaking events. A second product, CC (Cognitive Companion), is presented as a desktop companion robot for older adults that remembers a person's life story and notices changes. RIA is still described in press as an advanced prototype moving toward volume manufacturing.

Capabilities & Activities

Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:

Applications & Industries

Product Categories

Products & Solutions

RIA

Companion social humanoid with expressive realistic face, multilingual conversation and mood detection, piloted in elder care, UCSD medical English and Golisano Institute classes.

CC (Cognitive Companion)

Desktop companion robot for older adults that the company says remembers a life story and notices when something changes.

Partnership & Notable clients

Associating Events

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Contact Machani Robotics

WEBSITE

https://machanirobotics.com

PHONE

+44 7595 068054

HEADQUARTERS

Sacramento , California  95814

United States

Company Facts

Founded

2020

Primary Role

Manufacturer

Company Size

-

Primary Region

North America

Annual Sales

-

Funding Stage

Subsidiary / Acquired

Funding Total

-

Keywords

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