Perceptual Robotics: from university spin-out to global success

Earlier this year Perceptual Robotics announced a substantial pre-Series A investment to expand their business into North America and Latin America and double the size of their team.

The international business already has offices in Athens and teams across Europe, in Argentina as well as operations in Southeast Asia – but it all started right here in Bristol. We caught up with them to hear their story.

The international business already has offices in Athens and teams across Europe, in Argentina as well as operations in Southeast Asia – but it all started right here in Bristol. We caught up with them to hear their story.

Perceptual Robotics was co-founded by Kostas Karachalios, Dimitris Nikolaidis and Kevin Driscoll-Lind in 2016 when they were all studying for a master’s in engineering at the University of Bristol. The concept started as a research project at university, which developed into the current business.

The co-founders are passionate about innovation and sustainability, so focused their research project on creating an autonomous inspection platform for wind turbines. 

Following their master’s the team incubated their idea at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, and this spun out into a startup based at Future Space. Here they have been developing their product with the support of UWE Bristol and the University Enterprise Zone leading to their business going commercial in 2019.

The system they have created uses drones, AI, and machine learning to inspect the turbines for damage and collate and analyse data. This reduces the need for human inspection of the wind turbines and makes the process safer, more efficient and cost-effective.

In 2022 they turned their solution into bespoke modular systems that can be purchased by their customers to match their individual budget and challenges, making the product more accessible on a global scale.