BOW raises £4m seed funding

Congratulations to BOW, the universal robotics software company, on successfully closing a £4 million seed round.

Led by Northern Gritstone, along with co-investors Finance Yorkshire and Praetura Ventures as part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II, the round follows the appointment of Liz Upton, Co-Founder of Raspberry Pi, as Chair of BOW’s board at the end of 2024.

The following article is taken from the announcement on Northern Gritstone's website

The robotics market is projected to reach $260 billion by 2030. However, application development has been hampered by the complexity and cost of programming.

BOW offers a software platform that handles the complexities of robotics and allows developers to focus on innovation and creativity instead of technical challenges. Its ‘robot-agnostic’ software development kit (SDK) bridges the gap between diverse robotic systems, enabling integration and operation across multiple platforms, regardless of operating system or manufacturer.

BOW is already on an exciting trajectory with Liz Upton the Raspberry-Pi Co-Founder having joined the company as Chair of the Board. The company is working with OEMs, software development houses and research and development teams to address the core issues of portability between different makes and classes of robots. 

The £4 million Seed round led by Northern Gritstone includes co-investors Finance Yorkshire and NPIF II – Praetura Equity Finance.

Duncan Johnson, CEO of Northern Gritstone, said: “Northern Gritstone is delighted to support BOW’s team, who once again demonstrate that world-leading technology businesses are being created in the North of England. BOW’s groundbreaking robotics platform is a perfect example of innovation in the region born out of the University of Sheffield’s world-class academic research”

Nick Thompson CEO of BOW said: “The robotics market is growing fast, but that growth would be exponentially higher if the tremendous cost and complexity of programming robots were reduced. Robotics has an almost unlimited potential to help humanity solve global challenges, but the world simply can’t afford to wait for robotics to standardise around a single operating system and coding language. BOW’s universal software platform and SDK elegantly solve this intractable problem by enabling any software developer to program various types of robots using the coding language of their choice, make portable applications and enable easy interoperability between any make and model of robot. This £4 million seed investment, led by Northern Gritstone, will be used to build on our strong commercial traction to date, expand our brilliant team and accelerate our product development so we can unleash the full potential of robotics for the betterment of our world.”