By Stewart Miller, CEO of the National Robotarium. Originally published by The Scotsman on 5 February 2026.

Joan Kangro founded Kingdom Technologies after graduating from the University of Glasgow with a vision to build one of the world’s first commercial robotic mowers for large-scale terrains. Golf courses, sports fields, parks, commercial campuses. It was a genuine problem waiting to be solved, and he saw it.

He assembled a world-class robotics team. They designed and developed technology sophisticated enough that some of the largest companies in the industry licensed it. They began building customers across the UK and the US. In 2022, investors and venture capitalists backed them with £2 million. By 2024, the founders of Skype and Bolt invested another £1.4 million. A £20 million Series A was planned.

Then, in January of this year, Kingdom Technologies entered liquidation.

In robotics, the technology is mature and proven. The costs of buying and operating have dropped dramatically. Scotland is continually growing new robotics companies with products that should be finding markets here. So why is Kingdom’s tale one that is becoming far too familiar?

“In a challenging fundraising climate and an increasingly competitive market,” Kangro reflected, “we were not able to raise the capital needed to continue.”

Kingdom didn’t fail because its technology was weak. It failed because it couldn’t find enough customers quickly enough. While it waited for businesses to adopt, it ran out of runway.

Scotland has spent years building world-class research capability in robotics. We’ve succeeded. By almost any measure, Scotland’s robotics research is genuinely excellent. But excellence in research isn’t the same as businesses actually using it.

It’s the second robotics company with market-ready products to collapse in recent times. The Small Robot Company faced the same problem – remarkable technology that farmers desperately needed to make crop management easier, but not enough early adoption to keep the lights on while they scaled.

This isn’t about either company’s business decisions. It’s about a market challenge Scotland and the UK needs to face.

Scotland has spent years building world-class research capability in robotics. We’ve succeeded. By almost any measure, Scotland’s robotics research is genuinely excellent. But excellence in research isn’t the same as businesses actually using it.

Globally, it’s expected that the robotics market will be worth over £200 billion by 2030. Germany installs nearly eight times more robots than the UK, according to recent figures. Asia accounts for nearly three quarters of all global robot installations. These countries aren’t winning because they’re necessarily better at inventing. They’re winning because their businesses are adopting faster.

Meanwhile, across the UK, approximately 20,000 of our 27,000 manufacturing small and medium-sized businesses operate without any robotics whatsoever. The gap between having the solution and deploying it across the economy is where we’re falling behind.

But we can see what’s possible when an industry embraces robotics at pace. Look at food manufacturing. It’s a sector with a rich history of automation, and it’s showing what happens when businesses adopt confidently. Companies like Aberdeen-based Leap AI are thriving because food manufacturers across the UK – from Fife to Kent – are ready to implement robotic solutions. It’s addressing acute labour shortages that cost the industry £1.4 billion annually. It’s improving efficiency. It’s staying competitive.

That sector-wide confidence creates the market robotics companies need to survive and scale. When businesses adopt at pace, innovation doesn’t just survive – it flourishes. Leap AI secured £7.9 million in funding and is growing. Not because it got lucky, but because its sector was ready.

Imagine if manufacturing, healthcare, energy, and agriculture showed the same confidence. That’s the opportunity in front of us.

Denmark shows what this could look like at national scale. With a population smaller than Scotland’s, they’ve built one of Europe’s strongest robotics ecosystems. Their manufacturers install 234 robots per 10,000 workers. The UK manages 119. The difference? Danish businesses are more confident adopting. Part of that comes from their Odense Robotics hub, which connects companies with suppliers, provides hands-on testing facilities, and helps businesses move from interest to implementation.

Scotland is building similar support. The National Robotarium, which I lead, is working to grow awareness of robotics, grow business confidence in the technology and support companies to build a new technology sector in Scotland.

We run Robotics Readiness Workshops – free programmes helping businesses understand where robotics fits their operations and how to implement it. We’ve engaged tens of thousands of young people in robotics education, supported dozens of start-ups, and delivered industry-funded projects showing what’s achievable.

But no single organisation can solve this. The real shift happens when businesses across Scotland in all sectors decide robotics isn’t something for the future. It’s something for now.

What most people don’t realise is that when a business adopts robotics, they’re not just solving their own problems, like addressing labour shortages, improving efficiency, and staying competitive. They’re also helping build the market that keeps innovative Scottish robotics companies alive. Every implementation matters.

..no single organisation can solve this. The real shift happens when businesses across Scotland in all sectors decide robotics isn’t something for the future. It’s something for now.

Kingdom Technologies had the talent. It had the technology. It had backing from serious investors who believed in what they were building. What it couldn’t get was enough businesses moving fast enough from “this could work for us” to “we’re doing this.”

That’s the gap we need to close. Not through better research; we’re already excellent at that. Not through more innovation; we’ve got that in spades. But through businesses taking action.

The robotics revolution is happening globally, right now. The question for Scotland is whether our businesses will participate in it quickly enough to capture the opportunity – and to stop companies like Kingdom from becoming cautionary tales.