Cork Homebot founder: ‘It’s grown faster than we ever imagined’

From running her own equestrian centre to launching her own home robot business, and having two children along the way, Clara Mulligan admits the last few years have been ‘wild.’

This year’s Network West Cork STEM professional winner admits to feeling ever so slightly uncomfortable with the title.

“When I think of STEM, I think of someone in a lab in a white coat, not someone like me, who is completely self-taught!” she said with self-deprecation. “But I’m leaning into it and realising that imposter syndrome can’t get in your way.”

Originally from Dublin, after running an equine centre in Kildare, she ran a horse clipping service, travelling nationwide and working with some of the country’s top trainers.

A turning point in her life came when she bought a set of horse clippers that didn’t work properly. She called the Irish company that supplied them, but they were unable to offer any insight.

A natural-born problem-solver, she came on board with them, sourcing alternative products for them and getting to grips with a supply chain that would prove vital to her future enterprise, even if she didn’t realise it at the time.

As much as she loved her equine work, it wasn’t compatible with family life. “Clipping was seasonal. You’d often leave home at 4am and wouldn’t be back until 11pm which was fine when I was single but not when I had my first child,” she said.

So Clara decided to pivot to a product-based business, and her light-bulb moment was sparked by a poor customer experience.

“I bought a robotic hoover when my son was six weeks old. It cost me around €1,000, but it wasn’t great - the application just wasn’t there yet. When I rang customer service, I was told that because I’d had it 31 days, and not the necessary 30, they couldn’t do anything for me – it was crazy! I knew if I had been dealing with someone locally, it would have been a different story and that was where the idea started,” she said.

Married to West Cork man Alan, the couple developed their business idea while living in a mobile home and building their home in Dunmanway in 2021.

“I could see gaps in the market with the existing robot mops, which were all flat, and weren’t up to the deep cleaning needed due to our wet climate,” she recalls.

Around the same time, she saw her father-in-law struggling to drag his lawnmower up steps - breaking his ankle in the process on one occasion. “He wanted to be independent and to do it himself, but his lawn was in three parts and existing robotic mowers at the time couldn’t do it, without [someone] spending thousands.”

That, and her robotic hoover experience, ultimately led to the launch of HomeBot Ireland, which sells a range of robotic lawn mowers, vacuums and mops.

“It all happened organically really from there. Because of my prior experience we had a prototype mower pretty quickly and launched in June, 2024, and four months later we had a robot vacuum and a mop ready to go.”

The journey so far has been both harder and better than Clara expected. “It’s grown far faster than we ever imagined. Being at trade shows beside global brands in such a short time is unreal – and all without investors as well.”

She’s been a member of Network Ireland for around two years and finds it really beneficial being among a group of like-minded women.

No two days are the same for Clara, whose working day can start at 6am. “With time differences, that’s when I check in with our engineers in Asia and Europe. Then, after getting the kids, they’re now aged 5 and 3, up and out to school, I could be anywhere from the warehouse to tradeshows, to recruiting, to doing interviews.”

But she always has an ear to the phone and keeps tabs on their customers. Customer service is key at HomeBot: “We’ve a 0.16% returns and our Net Promoter Score, a customer experience metric that captures how likely a customer is to recommend your products is 84. We take great pride in that.

“After-sales support is so important to us along with the products themselves, which are detail-driven. For example, our robots are built for the layout of Irish homes and our mowers software will know to look out for things like clover.”

In the pipeline are plans to export and develop a robotic window cleaner. “We’re 90% there with it, it’s going to be really good! We also hope to launch a plumbed-in version of the robotic mop shortly.”

We have to ask – how many robots does she have at home? “At any time, we’d have three or four downstairs as we’re always analysing and comparing their performances. We’d have the same upstairs – that’s why we can have the luxury of a really nice carpet!”