The Crowdfunding Campaign May Have Ended, But Misty Is Just Getting Started
We look ahead toward a world filled with robots and to collaborating with the community that’s helping advance them.
As we described all the way back in October of 2017 (that’s like two decades in robot years), ours is a long-term plan. With the completion of our 30-day crowdfunding campaign for Misty II, Phase One: Unleash the Inventors! is now well underway.
During the past month, we’ve sought you out — developers, makers, entrepreneurs, students and educators — and we’ve asked you what you want in a programmable robot. We’ve met you at Maker Faires, worked alongside you at robothons, and spoken with you in our support channels. We’ve offered you a powerful, programmable robot, and you’ve told us that you’re psyched to get your hands on it. We raised over $822,000 in just 30 days and, more importantly, we’ve added roughly 500 people to the Misty family. We’re super excited you’ve joined this journey with us.
We’re putting the finishing touches on Misty II, and it will deliver on the promise of robots being accessible to every developer, student, and maker. But even as we work on Misty II, we’re also thinking about where we’re going after she ships in December. Misty Robotics’ next step: Phase Two — Enable Early Adopters — in years three through six of our company’s development is when we want consumers (who may love tech but who aren’t interested in writing code) to be able to experience the thrill of having a robot around their homes, offices, or businesses, helping to make their lives better.
We’re under no illusions. To get to Phase II, we’ll need hundreds, maybe thousands, of web, mobile, and other software developers to turn their attentions to this little robot and make her even more powerful by creating skills that are useful in their own homes and lives. These next two years are incredibly important to Misty, but also to robotics in general, and we’ve just taken the first step. We’ve reached hundreds of developers who are eager to join us in our mission. They’ve taken their first step and reserved their Misty II robot and are now eagerly awaiting its delivery. Some of these people are even getting a prototype version this month, so they can get started even earlier. These efforts will be incredibly important in helping shape the direction and features of Misty II and beyond. If you count yourself among these groups, we thank you. We won’t be able achieve our goals without you.
This is only the beginning. As we hunker down to make Misty II a reality, our priority is to deliver a great product and experience to you, and we promise to provide frequent updates on our progress. You can expect to receive open, honest, and substantive updates from us, outlining progress on hardware and software, manufacturing status, announcements of events and programs, and community stories and contributions.
Whether you’ve already reserved your Misty robot, are still considering it, or simply want to be involved in the discussion of robots and the future, we encourage you to create an account on the Misty community site and join in the conversations there. They aren’t just about Misty Robotics, but include insight and clarity on a wide variety of robot-related subjects.
Finally, even though the crowdfunding campaign is over, your friends and colleagues are still able to pre-order a Misty II. And you can still use your referral codes to get $100 for each person you refer who pre-orders (they also get $100 off their order). We’ll be increasing the price of Misty II to $1,999, and new orders won’t ship until the second batch (likely in early 2019), but we’ll still welcome each new developer, maker, and student into the community now. We know that the more people who are involved, the more skills and abilities will be created and shared, and the more powerful and helpful Misty will be.