William Sachiti

Early life

Sachiti was born in Harare, Zimbabwe, where he grew up before moving to the UK at 16.^[6]

Business career

At 19, Sachiti started his first start-up 123-registration a domain registration business which was acquired year after its inception. Sachiti first reached the public eye after appearing on the BBC investment programme Dragons' Den, where he was seeking 65K for his company Clever Bins.^[7] Clever Bins was a solar powered digital advertising bin which was aimed as an advertising platform for cities. In what was described by the BBC as a slick pitch, Sachiti was unable to raise funding in the den. The company continued to trade for three years during which time it successfully licensed its technology to 6 countries and local governments before closing in 2013.^{[8][9][10][11][12]}

In 2013, Sachiti founded mycityvenue, a digital concierge and holiday company which grew to approximately 1.6 million users before it was acquired by UK holiday company Secret Escapes.^[13][14][15]

In 2015 Sachiti went to university at Aberystwyth University in Wales, where he studied artificial intelligence and robotics. While at university he was credited with inventing the worlds first artificially intelligent robot librarian, Hugh (robot).^[16] The robot was capable of holding a conversation or taking verbal commands and would be able to navigate users to any one of several million books in the library.^{[17][18][19][20][21]}

While at university, Sachiti and a team of scientists had been working on a way to autonomously deliver packages to try to solve the last mile delivery problem.^[22] In 2016, after receiving a £10 000 cheque from Aberystwyth University, Sachiti founded the Academy of Robotics, a vehicle manufacturer company to develop Kar-go. Kar-go is driverless car able to deliver multiple packages by using a combination of advanced robotics and driverless vehicle technology.^[23][24][25] The company later went to raise more money from venture capital at an initial £2M valuation. Kar-go has been nominated for several awards and has a production facility in Small Dole near Brighton in the UK.^{[26][27][28][29]}

In 2018 William appeared on National Assembly for Wales^[30] where he discussed with MP’s the state of Self-driving vehicles - Automation and the Welsh Economy. The appearance was part of the Welsh Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee which was televised live on the Welsh Senate TV. The BBC later reported^[31] that William Sachiti warned AM’s that Self-driving vehicles could threaten cars and buses. In July 2018, Richard Branson cited Sachiti’s company's (Kar-go) work in the autonomous car space, linking to a publication on Virgin Entrepreneur^[32]. The company later reported to have closed a funding round in six hours.^[33]

Personal life

Sachiti was married in 2009 to his Italian wife. In 2013 he received a lot of press attention after his “jealous wife”^[34] hired a private investigator to track his movements.^[35] The investigator planted a tracking device underneath Sachiti’s £40K sports car. After being pulled over, the flashing device under his car was mistaken for a bomb and led to a bomb scare, shutting down a town and the military being called in. No evidence of a bomb or an affair was found but the story became viral and continued to circulate in tabloids.^{[36][37][38][39]}