Inside The Gaming Robot Company Partnering With Apple And Amazon

Silas Adekunle is the 27-year-old CEO and founder of a robotics company that he says has raised $10 million in funding. He also built what he calls the world's first gaming robot, which impressed Apple executives enough that, in 2017, the tech giant signed an exclusive distribution deal with Adekunle's UK-based company, Reach Robotics. Apple now sells the robots at $250 a pop.

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Silas Adekunle was born in Nigeria and moved to the UK at about 11 years old. He spent much of his childhood obsessed with science and technology, playing with Lego robot kits and watching YouTube videos to get ideas for simple robots he could build himself at home.

Adekunle still remembers the first time he built his own robot, "if you could even call it a robot," he tells CNBC Make It. He was only about 9 years old, still living in his hometown of Lagos, Nigeria.

This first robot "was basically this motor with two batteries stuck to the side," Adekunle says. "And it would kind of buzz around and kind of shake around, and I would add little steering legs to it, to get it to move in a certain direction. So, you learn a little from there."

That very rudimentary robot actually "worked quite well," Adekunle says — or, at least "as much as a motor with two batteries stuck to it could work."

Now armed with a Bachelor's degree in robotics from the University of the West of England, Adekunle is focused on a much more advanced robotic creation. Called MekaMon, Reach Robotics describes its product as a "battlebot" that uses augmented reality technology to allow gamers and robotics enthusiasts alike to play around with the device in both the real and virtual world.

You can control the MekaMon with a smartphone or tablet (they're compatible with both iOS and Android-supported devices), making the four-legged robots walk around or do flips right in front of you. Connecting the MekaMon to a smart device via bluetooth and opening a free-to-download MekaMon app also unlocks a world of virtual gameplay where your robot can do virtual battle in your actual living room.

The MekaMon's infrared sensors and cameras can identify real-life furniture around it, with augmented reality technology turning a coffee table into a hiding spot for your battlebot as it fires virtual lasers at a rival robot in combat taking place on your smartphone.

"The best way to think of a MekaMon [is] as an entertainment platform," Adekunle tells CNBC Make It. "You've got this robot that's got four legs — really agile, lots of personality, lots of character. You control it from your smartphone or tablet. The more you play with it, the better it gets. You can compete with other people."

Adekunle has been playing with robots for most of his life. Growing up, his father was a chemistry teacher and his mother was a medical nurse, so he says he was always surrounded by science. In Lagos, he spent a lot of time hanging out with neighbors who worked fixing radios and other electronics for a living, learning the basics of using tools to fix and build electronic devices.

"I always wanted my own personal robot," he tells CNBC Make It. "You watch 'Transformers' [and you think], 'I wish I could have Bumblebee in real life.'"

Once he even caused a power outage for his entire apartment block when he tried to plug a battery into a power outlet using just some spare wires.

After his family moved to the UK, Adekunle continued to show an interest in technology, even getting into trouble at school by trying to hack into school computers to get around internet filter software that tried to keep students from playing games online.

When Adekunle went to college, he knew he wanted to focus on robotics, and he even started working on a prototype while still in his college dorm in Bristol, UK. "That took a few months in my dorm room building that," Adekunle says.

In 2013, Adekunle met Christopher Beck, who was studying for his PhD in computer science, and John Rees, a robotics expert and engineering consultant. The three of them co-founded Reach Robotics that same year, taking Adekunle's robot prototype and working to develop it into what would become the MekaMon over the next few years.

Read more about MekaMon here

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This 27-year-old built the world's first gaming robot and now he's partnered with Apple and Amazon | CNBC Make It.