Andromeda, a Melbourne-based robotics startup with the ambitious goal of tackling the loneliness epidemic, has raised $23 million in a Series A funding round. The company says the investment brings its valuation to $100 million.

US-based Forerunner Ventures led the round, which is the largest Series A round by a women-led startup in Australia this year. It also features a cohort of female investors, with Forerunner’s Eurie Kim, Main Sequence’s Alezeia Brown, Rethink Impact’s Heidi Patel, and Artesian’s Ananya Sinha participating.

Other investors in the round include Rethink Impact, Artesian, Main Sequence, Visible Ventures, and Trampoline. Previous investors, Purpose Ventures, which led Andromeda’s seed round last year, and accelerator Startmate also returned to back the company.

Andromeda’s main product is Abi, a humanoid robot designed to provide companionship. With its core focus on empathy and emotional intelligence, the company is betting that robotics can help fill a critical social need.

“We believe the next mass technological adoption will be the home companion robot. With Abi, we’re leading that shift – starting in aged care where the need for meaningful connection is greatest,” said CEO Grace Brown.

The funding announcement coincides with the launch of the next-generation "Genesis Abi." The new model features major upgrades that make it fully autonomous and ready for workforce integration. The first deployment of Genesis Abi is scheduled to take place this month at a mecwacare aged care home in Australia.

“Genesis Abi is fully autonomous,” Brown explained. “Care teams can direct Abi and set her daily schedule, and she’ll navigate the home independently – supporting staff to lead group activities, spending one-on-one time with residents, conversing in their preferred language, listening to their stories, and bringing that spark of human connection we all crave.”

Brown emphasised that Abi was co-developed with aged care partners to augment, not replace, human staff. “We’re grateful to all our aged care partners who’ve co-developed Abi with us to support care teams in providing more companionship to residents, filling a void that simply can’t be solved by more staff alone,” she added.

The new capital will be used to accelerate the company’s push into the United States and scale its Australian operations.

“This funding will see us expand into the US focusing on aged care initially, and in Australia it means we can fast track our waitlist and bring the magic of Abi’s companionship to more customers and partners in the aged care sector and other industries,” Brown said. “We’re hiring across every area of our business in Australia from engineering to customer success while in the US, we’re particularly looking for creative and animation robotics specialists.”

Andromeda’s origin is rooted in personal experience. Brown, a mechatronics engineer, was inspired to create a companion for herself during Melbourne’s extended COVID-19 lockdowns. She co-founded the company with Yan Chen, moving swiftly from R&D to commercialisation.

“We’re at the frontier of emotion, character AI and social systems design, building a new kind of relationship that feels warm, helpful and profoundly human because the world needs more of that,” Brown said.