In a  goodbye posted on its website, Embodied explained: 

“We had secured a lead investor prepared to close the round. However, at the last minute, they withdrew, leaving us with no viable options to continue operations.” 

Despite backing from tech heavyweights like Intel Capital, Amazon Alexa Fund, and Toyota AI Ventures, no one could—or would—rescue Moxie from its impending obsolescence. 

When it launched in April 2020, Moxie promised parents everything short of bedtime story immortality. It was marketed as a “safe and engaging animate companion” designed to nurture kids’ emotional, social, and cognitive growth.

It had weekly themes like empathy and friendship, guided meditation, reading sessions, and drawing activities.

 But beneath the cheerful veneer, Moxie relied on cloud connectivity to function—a dependency that will soon render it about as useful as a dead Tamagotchi. 

Embodied doesn’t even know when the end will come. On its website, the company states: 

“We don’t know the exact date when services will cease. It is likely to happen within days.”

Imagine explaining to a crying child that their robot bestie is about to go dark—but not to worry; Embodied generously provides a *guide* on breaking the news. Yes, that’s right, a how-to manual for parents telling their kids that Moxie has gone to Silicon Heaven. 

With Moxie’s impending deactivation, warranties, repair services, and basic customer support will vanish.  Embodied says it’s “unable” to offer compensation except, maybe, to customers who bought their robot within the last 30 days—and even then, refunds are contingent on the unlikely event of a company buyout. 

Things for families who financed Moxie through third-party lenders are even more Kafkaesque. Embodied’s advice? Contact your lender. So, some parents might end up paying interest on a broken robot as if the emotional trauma of a bricked childhood companion wasn’t enough. 

We guess the moral of the story is to stick to Lego.