TLA Robotics networking event #2

STIQ organised a 2nd Robotics Networking event in London via the TLA Robotics working group, kindly hosted by Shoosmiths.

- TLA Robotics meetup #2, image courtesy of Kay So.

The event was planned many months in advance, but we still managed to pick the warmest day on record in the UK. There was a cool 21C degrees inside the venue whilst it hovered around 38-40C outside.

Despite widespread train cancellations and delays throughout the UK on the day, the event garnered a 40-strong audience including investors, students, robot vendors and others.

The audience viewed a range of great presentations from the following companies:

• Foresight Williams ventures
• UCL
• Remix Robotics
• Oxbotica
• Ice Nine
• Centaur Robotics
• Touchlab
• Muddy Machines

- Tom Andersson of STIQ & TLA Robotics introducing the second in-person event. Image courtesy of Julian @ Retail Robotics.

Andrew Bloxam at Foresight Williams ventures kicked off the presentations as Richard Cookson from Oxbotica was delayed on trains. Foresight is one of the few seed, early stage hardware investors in the UK and gave some insights into their background and thinking when investing in "hard tech". 

Helge Wurdemann at  UCL presented some of their work with soft haptics at the SoftHaptics Lab a project dealing with haptic feedback for humans when driving autonomous vehicles, or rather, not driving. There were some interesting aspects on accidents and at what 

Jack Pearson from Remix Robotics gave a very insightful and honest presentation on what it is like to start up a robotics company and how they got to the point where they are right now.

Richard Cookson presented Oxbotica, one the UK's top promising autonomous driving/vehicle scaleups. 

Since trains were cancelled when he go to Manchester train station, Matthew Nancekievill from Ice Nine Ltd presented to the audience remotely via Zoom (it worked, yeah!). This was a first for TLA Robotics and may be something we will entertain going forward. 

- Matthew at IceNine presenting to the audience via Zoom connection. Image courtesy of Philip English at Robot Center.

Rod Brown from Centaur Robotics presented their self balancing wheel chair. As the full scale model was on display at the Design Museum, he brought in a smaller version for the audience to view.

Zaki Hussein from Touchlab presented their exciting "human touch sensors".  

Lastly, Florian Richter from Muddy Machines presented their advances in AgTech with their picking robot. 

Noteable mentions: Phill Davies from Magway showcased a model of their parcel delivery shuttle at the event. This looked great. 

Unfortunately Shadow Robotics cancelled their participation due to the heatwave. We're hoping to see them at a future event.

- The facilities at Shoosmiths. Post presentations. Image courtesy of Kay So. 

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TLA Robotics Registration Demographics

Who registers for the TLA Robotics events?

We did a bit of analysis and found that the majority of registrations come from robot vendors and others (customers, consultants, people interested in the sector, etc).

There were also a relatively high proportion of investors registered for this event, from angels and seed investors to those with >$50m tickets.

Contact us if you want some more clarification on the demographics.

The next TLA Robotics networking event

If you want to participate, sponsor, visit or present at an upcoming TLA Robotics networking events - simply contact Tom or send an email to tla.robotics [at] gmail.com

This applies:

• We invite max 2 people from the same company (not applicable to uni's)
• Max 100 people
• 8-10 company presentations

The next TLA Robotics networking event will take place on November 16th, 2022.

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If you want to present at TLA Robotics - reach out to us. If you have views on the event, thought it was great/could be better, etc. - leave a comment!

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Previous event writeup: TLA Robotics March 23rd, 2022