As the world emerges from the shadows of lockdowns of the last 16 months, consumers, starved for entertainment options out of the home, will be greeted with new and novel immersive experiences that fuse technology and groups together. Advances in motion tracking, touch screens, and sound technologies are making location-based entertainment solutions more compelling and attractive for those wanting to try something new. Electric Gamebox is a provider of social in-person multisensory gaming experiences designed to be enjoyed by groups of 2-6. The company currently has four locations that offer 30-60 minute experiences that are designed to collaborative and fun with plans for aggressive geographic expansion over the next few years. The Electric Gamebox experience requires a small physical footprint and the company plans to integrate into existing retail locations to increase its availability. Like Escape the Rooms, the gameplay is meant to be versatile for outings for groups of friends, dates, corporate team-building, birthday parties, etc. The company currently offers 6 games that it has developed with plans to bring more titles onboard including brand name franchises to enhance its experiential capabilities. Pricing for its London location starts at £9 for kids and £14 for adults for 30 minutes, making it quite accessible. London TechWatch caught up with CEO, Cofounder, and repeat entrepreneur Will Dean (founded Tough Mudder) to learn more about the inspiration for the business, how the company managed to expand despite lockdown during the pandemic, strategic plans, lastest round of funding from investors that include Philian, Brookfield Asset Management, Index Ventures, Project A, and ActivumSG.
Tech
Robotic Startup Now Cuisine Takes On Ghost Kitchens and Drone Deliveries
The robotics industry is at an inflection point where the baton is being passed from the scientists to the practitioners. In historical terms, we are witnessing the Edisons of the world harness the innovations of the likes of Faraday to create life-changing businesses and wealth. Automation has moved from smart manufacturing and logistics to fry cooking and salad tossing.
Robot Stomachs: Powering Machines With Garbage and Urine
The World Bank estimates that 3.5 million tons of solid waste is produced by humans every day, with America accounting for more than 250 million tons a year or over 4 pounds of trash per citizen. This figure does not include the 34 billion gallons of human organic materials that are processed in water treatment centers across the country each year.
Purlos Helps Colleges Keep Students Engaged and Enrolled with its Digital Chat Platform
COVID-19 has radically transformed the university experience with the shift to remote classes. Many college students have decided to postpone their undergraduate studies; many of them will never enroll. Others are on contemplating whether to drop out or not. This not only presents a challenge for the colleges but also for society in general as those with just a high school diploma are expected to learn ~£1M less on average than those with their bachelors over the course of their lifetimes. Purlos is a personalized engagement platform built on Salesforce that helps academic institutions retain students by engaging and communicating with them in the channels that students are already actively using. The platform works to address the concerns of potential students during the admissions and enrollment process. The company’s digital assistant, Jenni, provides support through its AI-powered chat and for issues that cannot be addressed, the platform will escalate issues directly to administration. For the institutions, they are provided with a robust data analytics console that identifies the students that are most likely at-risk to drop out. London TechWatch caught up with CEO David Bartlett to learn more about the challenges facing higher educational institutions, the company’s traction, future plans, and much, much more.
Are Robo-Butlers Really Handy?
“I am extremely skeptical about the quality of the artificial intelligence behind the housekeeping robot in Samsung’s CES video. They show it performing an extremely wide variety of tasks, from pouring wine to loading the dishwasher to doing laundry. Developing an AI robust enough to go into an unknown consumer home and learn from them how they want to pick up toys is already a hard problem.”
What is Clubhouse App, and Why Does it Matter?
Let’s talk about Clubhouse app. The app is the beginning of a wildly underrated, emerging, social media platform. Why is it underrated? Because most people don’t know about it yet. While many of you might already know about Clubhouse, in the scheme of 300 million-plus Americans and 7.5 billion people on earth, very few do. The […]
Deary Gives You a Daily Dose of Nostalgia by Turning Your Messages into Memories
Deary is the first app that uses AI to discover emotional sentiment in your chat-messages and transform them into a story. Deary brings people closer together by unlocking the human value in chat-messages and presents users with ‘Message Cards’ that contain a day’s worth of messages. London TechWatch chatted with Cofounder and CEO Federico Allegro to understand how navigating his long-distance relationship inspired the creation of Deary, the company’s experience building in London, and future plans.
Guardara Pulls in £120K to Make Fuzzing Accessible for Software Development Teams
Fuzzing, or fuzz testing, is a quality assurance technique used to identify coding errors and hackable software bugs in enterprise software, networks, or systems. Guardara has built a general-purpose fuzzer, FuzzLabs, to help enterprise security teams easily find code defects and vulnerabilities earlier on in the development process. London TechWatch caught up with Mitali Rakhit to learn more about Guardara, the inspiration for the business, fundraising virtually, and the company’s recent funding from Techstars.
Avion Raises £300K for its User Story Mapping Tool to Help Agile Software Teams Build Better Products
When it comes to building digital products, user story mapping is a critical component of the development process that can either push a project forward or set it back for months. Avion is the user story mapping tool that helps agile software teams build digital products smarter and faster. Avion’s interface enables software teams to collaboratively visualise the entire product map and user journeys on a user story map in order to effectively plan future releases, uncover gaps, and prioritise the most important tasks. London TechWatch caught u with Cofounder James Sear to learn more about Avion, how it’s making the software development process more agile, and the company’s first funding round from Haatch.
The Next Stage in the Financial Revolution: AR and VR Solutions
The next step in the financial evolution has welcomed the applications of immersive Augmented and virtual realities. AR and VR can transform traditional banking and financial services into staggering, visual experiences by developing a personalized, face-to-face virtual environment.