Sphero acquires a music education startup

NelsonG · June 22, 2018

It’s hard to say precisely how Sphero’s pivot to education is going in these early stages, but it recently got an infusion of funding and is already out acquiring new startups. The BB-8 maker announced this morning that it’s picked up Specdrums — the fellow Boulder, Co-based startup is a Kickstarter success story that lets users create music with an app connected ring.

It’s a strange fit at first glance, but Sphero clearly sees the company’s wearable technology as a strong addition to its newfound STEAM education focus.

“We firmly believe that play is a powerful teacher. With the addition of Specdrums, we are strengthening the ‘A’ in STEAM in our product roadmap,” Sphero CEO Paul Berberian said in a press release tied to the news. “With Sphero’s infrastructure and the groundwork that the Specdrums founders have already completed, we believe there’s a huge opportunity to continue to inspire curiosity in classrooms and beyond.”

We're stoked to announce the addition of Specdrums, app-enabled musical rings that turn colors into sounds, to the Sphero family.

Get more details below, and be the first to know when Specdrums become available for purchase so you can stop beatboxing. https://t.co/P5xdpX583c pic.twitter.com/fbH5WcggnA

— Sphero (@Sphero) June 22, 2018

How Specdrums will fit into the larger company remains to be seen, but for now, Sphero is promising a relaunch of the company’s first music product the end of this year or the beginning of next. The initial Spedrums offering had been sold out after the closing of the company’s 2017 crowdfunding campaign.

Sphero, for its part, kicked off the year on rough footing, laying off dozens of staffers after the company’s glut of Disney-branded robotics toys failed to maintain its earlier Star Wars success. At the time, the company promised to double down on education, and is looking to fulfill that goal with a recent $12 million funding round.

Terms for this particular acquisition, however, have not been disclosed.