Daily Herald—Dmitry Grishin, founder of Russia's mail.ru, believes that the time is right to invest in robotics technology, and help bring robots to the mass market. He believes in it so much that he recently announced the launch of a $25 million venture fund geared toward bringing robots to daily life.

Grishin Robotics, as the venture is called, will operate out of New York City, which is rapidly trying to distinguish itself as a technology center on par with Silicon Valley. Grishin selected New York as a result of its central location, wide array of financial services, and the support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg , who has been leading the charge to produce higher technology and higher innovation within the city.

Grishin Robotics isn't just out to make competitors for the Roomba, a popular line of vacuum-cleaning robots, but also get robots involved in a variety of other sectors as well, like transportation and entertainment. Grishin Robotics is also looking to join the growing number of robotics firms looking to bring the devices to health care as well, much like Japanese firms Panasonic and Cyberdyne.

Grishin himself, meanwhile, studied robotics at the State Technical University in Moscow, and says that in recent years most technological advancements have focused on the Internet and similar software -related applications. Grishin's launch looks to be a bit on the risky side--even he acknowledges that this is a relatively new field, and that it could be years before any of the initiatives the fund undertakes pay off--but with a wide open space, and the proven success of iRobot's line of Roombas and various military applications still in the making, there is a great potential here for Grishin Robotics to do some very impressive things.

If more companies get into the field, like Grishin Robotics, then the chances of innovation increase steadily as more companies work on ventures, and more companies play off each other's advancements to yield further advancements from there. The end result is more, better, and cheaper robots that do more things, and make the overall robotics market more competitive, which in turn is almost always a good sign for consumers.