News

PowerON is turning the vision of soft robotics into reality, through the development and commercialisation of revolutionary soft electronics technology.

Based on research originating from the Biomimetics Lab at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute, the PowerON team are deploying their dielectric elastomer technology towards sensing, signal processing, energy harvesting and actuation use cases in a variety of industrial applications.

The $3.1 million raise was oversubscribed through strong support from the New Zealand investment community, including IP Group, Booster Investment Management, New Zealand Growth Capital Partners, Quidnet Ventures, K1W1, Greenlight Ventures, Pacific Channel, and Angel Investors Marlborough.

The capital raised will enable the company to build the market for TouchDetect, a soft fingertip giving robots sense of touch, and develop new products including lifelike soft robotic devices and collaborative robots, using PowerON artificial muscles instead of motors and gears.

The Managing Director of IP Group Australia, Dr Michael Molinari, said: “We are pleased to further support PowerON in its commercialisation journey, alongside a number of other investors. It’s particularly encouraging to see so many new funds realise PowerON’s potential and come together to support to this revolutionary technology.

“The investment from IP Group is part of a number of investments made this year to bring ground-breaking research from our top universities to life.”

PowerON CEO, Markus Henke, said: “PowerON’s technology will revolutionise the way society uses robots – shifting from hard machinery in cages to friendly, lifelike companions that work alongside us day-to-day. These changes will have an impact like the invention of semiconductors in the 1950s that led to the IT revolution.

“To make this vision a reality, we are expanding to fulfill strong customer interest we’ve seen since launching in 2019. We are building on internationally-patented research conducted in New Zealand over the past 10 years.

“The support shown by the venture finance community in this oversubscribed capital raise is a strong vote of confidence in our team and vision. We now have a clear runway to move our technology out into the market – and to change the world with the next generation of robotics.”

 

About IP Group

IP Group is a leading intellectual property commercialisation company focused on evolving great ideas from its partner universities into world changing businesses. The Group pioneered a unique approach to developing these ideas and the resulting businesses by providing access to business building expertise, capital, scientific insight, and the supporting infrastructure. In Australia and New Zealand, IP Group works in close partnership with the Go8 Universities and the University of Auckland to identify ground-breaking technologies, rooted in hard science, which have the most promising commercial potential. IP Group, which is listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange under the symbol IPO, has a strong track record of success and its portfolio comprises holdings in early stage to mature businesses across life sciences and technology. https://www.ipgroupanz.com/