Robotify and Simbotify to sign up millions of users in US and India after €1m raise
CODING and virtual robotics education platform Robotify has raised €1m from existing and new investors ahead of a launch on Clever, an online learning portal for US schools serving 15 million students a month.
Founded in 2015, the firm is backed by Sláinte Healthcare founder Andrew Murphy, Enterprise Ireland and a group of existing and new investors, including a number of Irish angel investors.
It offers more than 60 hours of online education which fits the US curriculum and standards set by the Computer Science Teachers’ Association of America, while its users are in 40 countries and it has other partners in the UK, Spain, Nigeria and the Benelux countries.
Robotify founders Evan Darcy and Adam Dalton and their team have also developed what they say is the world’s best in-browser physics engine with high accuracy and a very fast response rate on a platform called Simbotify, of interest to industrial and educational robot and drone manufacturers.
They aim to sign deals with such businesses in the coming months, they confirmed. Its technology offers three times faster and seven times more efficient simulations online than can be done on other existing platforms, they claim.
Both just 21 and having met when they were 11, Darcy studied engineering and mechatronics at DCU, but has taken a sabbatical, while Dalton is finishing a business degree there.
Simbotify can also be used to virtualise robotics competitions in India, where there is a potential market of 400 million students. They have partnered with Indian educational robotics company Avishkaar to develop a virtual International Robotics Championship for the first time, which is due for launch there later this month.
The firm’s latest funding round follows a €300,000 initial raise last year. It is understood the new round was oversubscribed and is at an increased, though undisclosed, valuation.