Silas Adekunle, a Nigerian-British entrepreneur, inventor, and robotics engineer, is renowned as the CEO and co-founder of Reach Robotics, a company that specializes in designing augmented reality gaming robots. Adekunle was born on July 6, 1992, in Nigeria, but grew up in the UK, where he attended the University of the West of England and pursued a degree in robotics. During his academic tenure, Adekunle established a robotics club to encourage youngsters to pursue STEM careers.
After graduation, Adekunle worked as a robotics engineer at a startup in Bristol before partnering with others to establish Reach Robotics in 2013. The company’s primary product, MekaMon, is a four-legged robot that can be controlled using a smartphone app. MekaMon employs augmented reality to merge virtual and physical gameplay in a gaming experience.
In 2017, Reach Robotics became the first robotics company to secure funding from Apple’s augmented reality (AR) platform, ARKit. The company further raised $7.5 million in 2018 through a funding round led by London Venture Partners, pushing the total funding amount to $10 million. Adekunle’s entrepreneurial and engineering accomplishments have been acknowledged, and he was named one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in European Technology in 2018.
