Founded at the University of Aberystwyth,聽electric聽autonomous vehicle start-up the Academy of Robotics has closed its latest聽funding round in under six hours.
Investment聽flooded in so quickly that the young company turned down an additional 拢500,000 that was offered.
The Academy of Robotics is currently developing Kar-Go, the autonomous delivery vehicle aiming to shake-up the market by removing 90 per cent of the costs involved in making a delivery. This, it hopes, will help increase profits for logistics companies and decrease costs for consumers.
By using a combination of advanced robotics and driverless vehicle technology, Kar-Go is designed to autonomously drive on unmarked roads such as residential areas.
Unlike many driverless vehicles that are best-suited to main roads and highways, Kar-Go is specifically designed with small, residential side-streets in mind.
The Academy of Robotics is partnered with UK聽car manufacturer Pilgrim Motorsports to build the street legal versions of their autonomous vehicles at Pilgrim鈥檚 production facility in the UK. The companies have collaborated on a data-gathering vehicle based on a classic Porsche.
The company recently announced it hired award winning designer Paul Burgess who left his role at McLaren to become chief designer at the Academy of Robotics.
鈥淚t has been 10 months since we closed our last funding round, as costs constantly change, there was a need to raise an additional 拢70,000 to take us through production,鈥� said founder William Sachiti.
鈥淲e reached out to our existing investors and showed them our progress to date and then simply asked them to help close the funding gap.鈥�
In under six hours the company had pledges for over 拢100,000 from half a dozen investors.聽 Within 24 hours the figure had reached nearly half a million.
鈥淗alf the formula for a winning start-up is having great investors aligned with it, who react decisively to funding rounds and requests for investment,鈥� said Sachiti.
鈥淲e are very lucky to have great investors on board who fit into this category. My job is to steer the company in the right direction while also looking after the interests of the existing investors, which is why I only accepted 拢100,000 and turned down the rest.
鈥淚 am not keen on taking a bunch of money and then subsequently diluting our existing shareholders.鈥�
After the prototype is complete, Sachiti has confirmed a raise of up to 拢3 million to build further prototypes of its Kar-Go vehicle for testing.
Virgin entrepreneur Richard Branson聽recently tipped the company聽to put the UK’s聽autonomous car scene on the map聽– quite literally – after聽saying he聽believed聽it could be聽one of the first to actually bring driverless cars to the UK’s roads.