Oso Technologies was founded in 2011 by five University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign engineering graduate students. CEO Eduardo Torrealba’s wife, who was having trouble keeping a basil plant alive due to improper watering, inspired the idea for their first product. The three co-founders built a prototype and moved into the EnterpriseWorks incubator in 2012. Oso Technologies uses low-power sensing and cloud computing to create affordable and user-friendly technology. Their first product, PlantLink, makes gardening easier than ever before by notifying users when a plant’s water level and moisture are low.
Later in 2012, they received seed funding from IllinoisVENTURES and were provided with capital from angel investors. After a yearlong Kickstarter campaign that raised $100,000, Oso Technologies was able to hire more employees. The company is now working to develop a commercial product for the agricultural market.
Oso Technologies was awarded the Student Startup Award at the 2013 Innovation Celebration which recognizes an organization formed by a student within the past three years whose demonstrated success is a result of entrepreneurial talent, creativity, and energy, and whose future success is indicated by its current path.
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