Category: Startups

Bolt closes funding round and opens applications

Bolt, Ben Einstein’s hardware and robotics accelerator in Boston, today announced the close of their first funding round and the opening of the first round of applications for 2013 hardware startups. Bolt has a 4000 sq ft high end prototyping shop under their offices in the Downtown Crossing district and plans to open the doors …

RobotsLab launches BOX at TCEA 2013

We all know that robots are the gateway to STEM education, so what’s not to love about getting 4 robots in a box, complete with lessons preloaded on a tablet. As both the US and UK undergo core curricula changes to better reflect the changing workforce and education needs, the market potential for robotics in …

Robot Startup Series #4 Chris Anderson at CES 2013

Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics, former Editor-in-Chief of WIRED and author of The Long Tail, Free and the newly published Makers, speaks about the new industrial revolution, how easy it is these days to start a hardware company and how he’s putting it into practice with 3D Robotics. (question at 36 mins)

Call to Startups

We’re fielding requests to recommend interesting robot startups for investors, competitions, media coverage, industry analysis, etc. The trouble is that everyone is looking for something different, whether it’s market segment, location or stage of readiness. Our goal was to personally interview all robot startups who register with Robot Launchpad but we’ve fallen behind. It’s time …

Robot startup series #3: Elad Inbar & RobotAppStore

I interviewed Elad Inbar, CEO of the RobotAppStore, just before the announcement that Grishin Robotics was investing $250,000 in this cloud robotics market play. For Grishin Robotics, the future is in the clouds. Grishin Robotics are investing $250,000 into RobotAppStore, an online marketplace for robotics applications. It seems that Grishin is betting on the robotics …

Grishin Robotics invest in RobotAppStore

For Grishin Robotics, the future is in the clouds. Grishin Robotics are investing $250,000 into RobotAppStore, an online marketplace for robotics applications. It seems that Grishin is betting on the robotics industry following the same patterns as the smartphone or personal computing industry. But can robotics be compared to either personal computing or smartphones, given …

Robot Startup Series #2 Bob Christopher

Bob Christopher was CEO of Ugobe, the company that made Pleo, the robot dinosaur, one of the first successful consumer robotics products. Greg Appelhof is the CEO of TRG, a global retail company specializing in emerging technologies. Together they have written “The 2 Year Itch”, a paper advising hardware and robotics consumer technology companies on …

Robot Startup Series #1 Autom and Cory Kidd

Consumer robotics had a watershed moment just a few days ago, when Autom, the robot weightloss coach, was launched at Dublin Web Summit. I’m very excited to open our Robot Startup Series with an interview with Dr Cory Kidd, the founder of Intuitive Automata and maker of Autom, which is now being produced by PCH …

Episode 2: Accelerator or Hackerspace?

  Is Robot Launchpad an accelerator or a hackerspace? Both. Right now we’re testing the viability of opening a robot hackerspace. Theoretically, this makes a lot of sense. I believe that the hackerspace and maker movement are fueling a resurgence of growth in hardware startups. Chris Anderson’s new book  Makers: The New Industrial Revolution, argues that we …