Kinematic Trees raises £585K pre-seed to build an intelligence layer for robots
What's the deal? Kinematic TreesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a UK robotics software startup, has raised £585,000 (€687,000) in pre-seed funding from HaatchDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The investment came across Haatch's SEIS Fund, D2N2 Early-Stage Angel Investment Fund, and British Business Bank Syndicate Fund.
Who's behind it? The company was founded last year by chief executive Dr Stuart Wilson, a senior lecturer in computational neuroscience at the University of Sheffield, and chief technology officer Daniel Camilleri, an exited co-founder of Cyberselves Universal, later Bettering our Worlds. The pair first discussed a "universal robot brain" at Stanford University in 2017, working on control systems modelled on how animal brains adapt.
What's the endgame? Kinematic Trees is building the intelligence layer that makes low-cost robots useful, safe, and customisable. Wilson said it would first build expertise on production lines, in warehouses, and in advanced manufacturing, then package that into modular software that can be "reused, recombined, and elaborated" for personal robots.
Where's the money going? The funds will build out commercial, robotics, and software engineering teams across London, Nottinghamshire, and Sheffield. That aligns with product development and international deployment plans.
Why now? "Advances in sensors, motors, and AI are now bringing robotics to people and businesses at exceptionally low cost," Wilson said. Camilleri added that the technology "has been ten years away for about 40 years."
The signal: Haatch, which backers say saw the vision "immediately," is betting on software rather than hardware as the differentiator in robotics. As cheap sensors and AI commoditise the machines themselves, the value increasingly shifts to the layer that decides what they do.
Read more: Insider Media
Image credit: NASARobonaut
