UK start-up raises £4m for ‘world’s first universal robotics software’
30 January 2025 
A UK robotics start-up has raised £4m of seed funding to boost its technology which, it claims, for the first time allows software developers to program any make of robot using the operating system and programming language of their choice. They can also port applications between different makes of robots, and manage and orchestrate fleets of robots.
This new money will accelerate development of the product and will help Sheffield-based BOW to scale its platform to meet growing demand from OEMs, developers and systems integrators.
By removing the need for highly specialised robotics programmers, BOW says that its platform allows generalist software developers to create, manage and deploy complex robotics applications. It also opens up applications in sectors that have previously been underserved by robots. In addition, robots running the BOW SDK (software development kit) are said to benefit from ultra-fast communications.
BOW – Bettering our Worlds – spun out from the University of Sheffield in 2020. It is now working with OEMs, systems integrators and software developers, who are using the SDK to accelerate robotics innovation and applications.
“This investment is a defining moment for BOW,” says its co-founder and chief technology officer, Daniel Camilleri. “It not only validates our vision, but also underscores the growing demand for cross-platform compatibility in robotics software. By simplifying robotics programming, we’re opening the door for all developers – not just roboticists – to shape the future of robotics. With BOW software, we’re enabling the ‘there’s an app for that’ revolution within the robotics industry.”
“The robotics market is growing fast, but that growth would be exponentially higher if the tremendous cost and complexity of programming robots were reduced,” adds BOW’s co-founder and CEO, Nick Thompson. “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,” he continues. “This £4m 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.”
The closure of the seed funding round follows the appointment of Raspberry Pi co-founder, Liz Upton, as chair of BOW’s board. Thompson and Upton are hoping to do for robotics what Raspberry Pi did for computing – make it accessible to millions, rather than the few.
The robotics industry is facing a critical bottleneck – a global shortage of roboticists, reckoned to amount to around 150,000 specialists worldwide. This shortage risks stalling growth in the sector, which has been projected to reach a value of $260bn by 2030. BOW’s SDK would allow the estimated 28 million general software developers around the world to apply their skills to robot programming.
In addition to Northern Gritstone, the science and technology investor that led the funding round, the other investors include Finance Yorkshire and Praetura Ventures (part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II).
