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MegaBots Inc. was an American startup company headquartered in Hayward,
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
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Official Web Site
Manufacturing companies based in Oakland, California Mecha companies
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
that created giant robots and real-world mecha
In science fiction, or mechs are giant robots or machines, typically depicted as piloted, humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese (language), Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the meaning in Japan ...
for robotic sports competitions.
In June 2015, MegaBots challenged Japan-based Suidobashi Heavy Industry 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 eBaHistory
MegaBots was co-founded in 2014 by Gui Cavalcanti, Matt Oehrlein, and Andrew Stroup (and follow-on co-founder Brinkley Warren in 2015) with the vision to start an international robot fighting sports league.
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 provides software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquarte ...
, DCM, Maveron, Azure Capital, and AME Cloud Ventures. In August 2015, MegaBots announced plans to upgrade its Mark II robot with melee capabilities by raising funds through a Kickstarter
Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...
campaign and partnering with Howe and Howe Technologies, NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
, and IHMC. MegaBots launched a YouTube web series at Techcrunch Disrupt 2016. The series followed the progress of the team as they upgraded the Mark II robot to take on the Kuratas. 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 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 $29,900ref name=":0" />
References
{{reflistExternal links
Official Web Site
Manufacturing companies based in Oakland, California Mecha companies