Former Android boss Andy Rubin has raised $48 million to fund hardware companies and joined a VC firm
Rubin was working on robotics for Google before he left, but no word on what his new fund will focus on.
Rubin's new venture - called Playground Global - has now raised a $48 million fund, per an SEC filing we first saw thanks to Fortune's Dan Primack.
Rubin will serve as the managing director, and the organization's board of directors include ex-Googler Matt Hershenson, former Microsoft executive Peter Barrett, and Bruce Leak, who co-founded WebTV.
Playground Global is a venture capital fund, according to the regulatory filing. No investors were identified in the filing.
However, Redpoint Ventures subsequently announced that Rubin will be joining their firm as a partner, and that it was the first investor in Playground. Redpoint is where Rubin first incubated the idea that became Android.
Redpoint's Jeff Brody cites Rubin's curiosity about cutting-edge technology as a reason why they're so excited to work with him:
Whenever I visit Andy, he always has the newest thing, the yet-to-be available gadget. Years ago, he smuggled from Japan the smallest flip phone in production. He kept robotic dogs as pets. Andy bought one of the first Segways and immediately drove it up a half-pipe, just to see how the gyroscopic systems would react. At Google, he modified a huge auto manufacturing robotic arm to make a cappuccino and stamp the Android logo on it in chocolate. Later, he had a near life-size humanoid robot that followed you around.