Croatian edtech start-up STEMI attracting investors from all over the world

STEMI team

ZAGREB, 12 December 2019 – Croatian edtech start-up STEMI is attracting the attention of investors from around the world as they look to expand their operations in the US and Europe. 

STEMI, who are empowering students all around the world by offering schools to become innovation labs for STEAM subjects, has raised over €214,000 since launching their campaign on crowdinvesting platform Funderbeam. 

By combining a mixture of Plug&Play programs and the interactive bio-inspired robotics of the Hexapod, STEMI has been able to start the process in achieving its goal – raising a new generation of engineers and problem solvers.

After launching with great success at CES 2017, STEMI secured a reliable supply chain and started selling direct to consumers in 9 countries across Europe and North America. 

“We then started pilot programs and saw a 90% conversion of adoption from these trial schools. Our goal is now to increase these pilot schools and continue offering more opportunity for children of all backgrounds to explore the STEAM fields.”

STEMI’s Hexapod

Stemi is eliminating the pain for teachers and educators around the world by offering to educational institutions a turn-key solution in the form of STEAM programs with seamless classroom integration.

“We want to radically decrease the time needed to transfer state-of-the-art technologies and industry knowledge into educational systems. Our solution has two critical aspects that help both teachers and students in the issues they’re facing. We developed our Educational Platform for teachers and students to offer seamless and simple ways to connect with our interesting Programs. The evolution to industry 4.0 is happening quickly and the knowledge gap between state-of-the-art technology and under supported educators, we believe, will only increase.”

STEMI’s programs enable teachers to facilitate project-based and personalised learning for their students. Students will gain a strong baseline in advanced STEAM knowledge while developing not only hands-on technical skills but soft skills like leadership, teamwork and life-long learning. Through this internship-like classroom experience students will generate a positive attitude towards the STEAM industry and they will develop important professional skills and industry experience.

“We first started by producing a bio-inspired Hexapod robot: a technological educational adventure used for designing, building and programming a robot that walks on 6 legs. Following successful launch of prototype at CES 2017, we were invited by Intel to attend San Mateo Maker Faire and exhibit Hexapod at their booth. Upon returning from the US, we focused on perfecting the robot. Hardware production turned out to be challenging and we chose not to start scaling internationally before we polished the hardware and software and prepared the production capacity.”

STEMI team

After receiving initial market feedback, STEMI managed to lower the cost of production by more than 60% and build a robust supply chain for mass production. Since its release, Hexapod has been tested in both consumer and educational market segments, to confirm the correct product-market fit. 

“We were able to successfully enter the consumer markets by selling through our web shop and distribution network. With Hexapod having now been sold in the USA, France, Canada, Germany, UAE, Estonia, Romania, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia.

Their first goal on their Funderbeam campaign is to raise €300,000 so they can build the infrastructure to support the seamless integration of STEAM programs into schools, grow a large customer base as quickly as possible and create a feedback loop for introducing new products on the market.

How to invest?

1. Go to their Funderbeam campaign and learn more about our future plans, CLICK HERE: http://bit.ly/stemi-fb
2. Register and verify your account with your ID or passport. The verification process usually takes up to 24 hours.
3. Indicate how much are you willing to invest. The minimum investment is 100 EUR. You don’t need to transfer the money until the campaign finishes and successfully reaches the goal (January 2020).