MegaBots Inc. was an American startup company headquartered in Hayward,

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

that created

giant robots In science fiction, or mechs are giant robots or machines controlled by people, typically depicted as humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese (language), Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the mean ...

and real-world

mecha In science fiction, or mechs are giant robots or machines controlled by people, typically depicted as humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese (language), Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the mean ...

for robotic sports competitions. In June 2015, MegaBots challenged Japan-based

Suidobashi Heavy Industry Kuratas is a rideable and user-operated mecha built by the Japanese company Suidobashi Heavy Industry. Billed as "the world's first giant boarding robot", the Kuratas was unveiled when the website was opened in 2012. It was demonstrated at Wonder ...

to the world's first giant robot duel. Suidobashi accepted the challenge on the condition that the fight include melee combat. In 2017, the company premiered a scripted version of the duel on Twitch TV, which ended in victory for the MegaBots team. In 2019, Matt Oehrlein declared MegaBots had run out of money. The same year, the company liquidated its assets, selling off its giant robot Eagle Prime on eBa

History

MegaBots was co-founded in 2014 by

Gui Cavalcanti Gui Cavalcanti is a robotics engineer who co-founded Open Source Medical Supplies, Artisan's Asylum, and MegaBots Inc. Education Cavalcanti studied engineering at Olin College and worked as a professor there after graduation. Career Cavalcant ...

, Matt Oehrlein, and

Andrew Stroup Andrew Myung Stroup (born May 22, 1985) is an engineer and entrepreneur, best known as a participant on the first season of the Discovery Channel's '' The Big Brain Theory''. He currently is the founder of LVRG. Early life Stroup was born in ...

(and follow-on co-founder Brinkley Warren in 2015) with the vision to start an international robot fighting sports league. MegaBot at Maker Faire 2015

The company premiered the Mark II ("Iron Glory") robot at Maker Faire in 2015. The company then went on to raise a seed round of $3.85M dollars from investors including

Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered ...

, DCM,

Maveron Maveron is an American venture capital firm that invests in consumer-only and early-stage companies, with offices in Seattle, Washington and San Francisco, California. The firm was co-founded by Dan Levitan and former Starbucks chief executive Ho ...

, Azure Capital, and

AME Cloud Ventures #REDIRECT AME {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous page ...

. In August 2015, MegaBots announced plans to upgrade its

Mark II Mark II or Mark 2 often refers to the second version of a product, frequently military hardware. "Mark", meaning "model" or "variant", can be abbreviated "Mk." Mark II or Mark 2 may refer to: Military and weaponry * 16"/50 caliber Mark 2 gun ...

robot with melee capabilities by raising funds through a

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

campaign and partnering with Howe and Howe Technologies,

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

, and IHMC. MegaBots launched a YouTube web series at Techcrunch Disrupt 2016. The series followed the progress of the team as they upgraded the

robot to take on the

Kuratas Kuratas is a rideable and user-operated mecha built by the Japanese company Suidobashi Heavy Industry. Billed as "the world's first giant boarding robot", the Kuratas was unveiled when the website was opened in 2012. It was demonstrated at Wonder ...

. The company won Best in Show at the 2017 LAUNCH Startup Festival and announced a total subscriber base of more than 250k, 20M+ video views, 29 billion press mentions, and an advertising equivalency value of $270M, which is one third of the brand value of the Transformers franchise during the period since MegaBots was founded. The company also announced its plans to launch spin-offs of the MegaBots entertainment brand in verticals such live events, sponsorship, TV/Digital, and merchandising. The company premiered the Mk.III ("Eagle Prime") robot at

Maker Faire Maker Faire is a convention of do it yourself aka-DIY enthusiasts started by ''Make'' magazine in 2006. Participants come from a wide variety of interests, such as robotics, 3D printing, computers, arts and crafts, and hacker culture. History ...

Bay Area in 2017 and the robot was featured on Jay Leno's Garage. After the company encountered complications while producing the world's first giant robot duel in Japan, at the request of Suidobashi Heavy Industries; a scripted version of the duel was filmed and was premiered on Amazon's Twitch TV in October 2017, with MegaBots winning in two rounds over Suidobashi. The match has since been viewed over 8.9M times and received a Guinness World Record in the category of "Largest Robots to Fight". In September 2019, the company had run out of money. Their assets were liquidated and the Eagle Prime robot that cost the company $2,500,000 to build was sold on eBay for $29,900

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References

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External links

Official Web Site
Manufacturing companies based in Oakland, California Mecha companies

History

See also

References

External links