Diligent Robotics

Market position

Diligent describes itself as a pioneer in human-robot interaction and, as of 2022, as the leading company in the social robotics space and the first to combine social intelligence with mobile manipulation in a workplace robot. The company frames its addressable market using a Research and Markets estimate that the global smart hospital market was $27.6 billion in 2021 and would reach $82.89 billion by 2026, a 24.6% compound annual growth rate. Third-party commentary from ZDNET characterized Moxi as a socially intelligent robot able to aid nurses without making people uncomfortable.

Diligent positions Moxi as more than an automated delivery cart: a robot teammate that is dexterous (compliant arm and hand), autonomous end-to-end, proactive in anticipating staff needs, and socially intelligent enough to operate among people and interact with patients and staff. It emphasizes being first to combine social intelligence with mobile manipulation in a workplace robot, rapid implementation without facility infrastructure changes, and human-guided learning that lets the robot adapt to each hospital's practices.

Technology

Moxi combines autonomous navigation in semi-structured hospital environments with a compliant arm and hand for manipulation, allowing it to grab, pull, open and guide objects unaided. Social intelligence features let it call elevators and open doors on its own and avoid people and obstacles in hallways, and it uses expressive interactions such as waving and displaying heart eyes. Human-guided learning enables the robot to adapt to a hospital's environment and workflows through staff use, and workflow software allows new tasks to be added dynamically. Deployment requires no infrastructure buildout and runs over a hospital's existing Wi-Fi. Amazon Web Services is listed among the company's technology partners.

Go-to-market

The company markets directly to hospitals and health systems, with demo bookings as the primary funnel entry point and customer-facing content built around quantified time savings and clinical staff testimonials from chief nursing officers, innovation managers and administrators. Sales are supported by a dedicated implementation team that customizes operational workflows during setup. Diligent also expanded operations, sales and engineering to meet demand after 2022, and its work with the Cedars-Sinai Accelerator provided a route into clinical testing at that health system. Amazon Web Services is identified as a technology partner.

Hospitals and health systems in the United States, including multi-location systems, community hospitals and academic medical centers. Within those organizations, buyers and users include chief nursing officers, nursing and clinical staff, pharmacy departments, radiology staff, supply chain and innovation/performance-improvement leaders.

Geography

Diligent is headquartered in Austin, Texas, and describes deployments at health systems across the United States, ranging from multi-location systems to smaller community hospitals and large academic and research-focused systems. Named sites and customers include UTMB Health Angleton Danbury, Mary Washington Healthcare, Shannon Medical Center/Shannon Health, Endeavor Health (including Edward Hospital), Medical City Denton, Novant Health and Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. Early research trials between 2018 and 2019 involved four health systems in Texas. Acquirer Serve Robotics is based in Los Angeles.

History

Diligent Robotics was founded in 2017 by social robotics researchers, with roots in research conducted at the University of Texas at Austin and founders trained at MIT and Georgia Tech. The company debuted Moxi in 2018. Between 2018 and 2019 it partnered with four Texas health systems on a series of research trials, using the findings to shape how Moxi fits into clinical workflows, and began first commercial deployments in 2020. The company participated in the Cedars-Sinai Accelerator program, which led to testing with Cedars-Sinai clinical teams. It raised a Series A round (approximately two years before April 2022), over $30 million in Series B funding in April 2022 led by Tiger Global, and, according to press coverage, a $25 million round in 2023, bringing total venture capital raised to more than $75 million. In January 2026, Serve Robotics announced its acquisition of the company.

Risks & controversies

The company's disclosed context includes dependence on hospital labor-shortage economics as the driver of demand, hardware supply chain and deployment scaling constraints (an explicit use of Series B proceeds), and the need for interoperability with existing hospital infrastructure, electronic health records and clinical communications systems. Following the January 2026 acquisition announcement by Serve Robotics, Diligent's independence as a standalone company ends, though Serve stated it would continue to operate relatively independently.