AN IRISH STARTUP trying to idiot-proof home baking with its smart kitchen products has scored a $2 million cash injection as it starts rolling out its first offering.
Drop, which was founded in Dublin only two years ago, has developed a combination of a recipe app and iPad-ready kitchen scale which gives culinary novices step-by-step instructions on how to prepare their dish.
Today the company announced it had secured $2 million (€1.6 million) in seed funding from a cohort of US and Irish investors including Innovation Works and Frontline Ventures, another Dublin-based firm specialising in backing software-based startups.
Drop has been taking pre-orders for its products ahead of an official launch before the end of autumn and the company’s co-founder and CEO, Ben Harris, said the business had a big response to its products so far.
“Our investors recognize that the kitchen has been mostly overlooked in the race to the connected home and share our excitement for aspiring home cooks a new way to find, follow and share great recipes,” he said.
More smart kitchen stuff coming
The company plans to release a series of kitchen products to tie into its recipe app and add to the scale, which is fed data via Bluetooth from an iPad and offers features like the ability to rescale quantities and suggest substitute ingredients.
Innovation Works partner Chris Evdemon said the “explosive growth” in Internet of Things (IoT) products like Drop’s scale fitted with customers’ desire for home products which were interactive and personalised.
IoT is a catch-all term for the interconnection of everyday objects and is a boom industry which includes wearable technology like Google Glass and the new Apple Watch.
Drop, which also operates an office in San Francisco, previously received €250,000 in backing from Frontline Ventures and the state body Enterprise Ireland to design the product.
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