Force is Strong With Sphero: $45M in Funding from Mercato, Disney

Sphero, maker of a line of robotics products that can be controlled with a mobile phone app, gained fame beyond its toy-like devices after news broke last month that the company was helping make a droid for the new Star Wars movie.

Now Sphero, which has one namesake device and a second called Ollie, has received more than fame: it announced yesterday $45 million of venture funding from Mercato Partners and a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. The Boulder,CO-based company first made the Disney connection after participating in the 2014 Disney Accelerator.

As a part of the financing, Mercato Partners co-founder and managing director Greg Warnoc is joining the company’s board.

The business, formerly known as Orbotix, made headlines when it revealed that the Star Wars droid, to be known in the upcoming film as BB-8, was indeed the real thing and not computer generated. Multiple reports indicated that the droid will be for sale later this year.

Sphero plans to use the money from the new financial round for product research, IP development, and for global expansion.

Author: David Holley

David is the national correspondent at Xconomy. He has spent most of his career covering business of every kind, from breweries in Oregon to investment banks in New York. A native of the Pacific Northwest, David started his career reporting at weekly and daily newspapers, covering murder trials, city council meetings, the expanding startup tech industry in the region, and everything between. He left the West Coast to pursue business journalism in New York, first writing about biotech and then private equity at The Deal. After a stint at Bloomberg News writing about high-yield bonds and leveraged loans, David relocated from New York to Austin, TX. He graduated from Portland State University.