Building credibility early on
After winning the Start-Up Series in 2019, Zobi first received investment from the Start-Up Series Fund in January 2020. At this stage, they had developed an algorithm and the early specification of the in-home device. We recognised very early that building trust and credibility in the consumer market, as well as the business market, needed a device design that not only did the job, looked beautiful in-home and supported the underlying proposition. Zobi instructed leading a global product design house to create a shelf-friendly device. By June 2020, the Hedgehog had been born and went on to win a 2020 European Product Design Award. Since launching the Hedgehog prototype, they have been able to take pre-orders, have preliminary conversations with B2B buyers and also raised an additional £800k of equity funding.