A Sheffield electronics company that makes and sells add-ons, kits and boards for Raspberry Pi and other small computers, and tests every board it builds.
Pimoroni is an independent electronics company based in Sheffield. It began in 2012 by selling a laser-cut acrylic case for the Raspberry Pi, the tiny low-cost computer popular with schools and hobbyists, and has since grown into designing and building its own boards. Its products include add-ons for the Raspberry Pi, the Raspberry Pi Pico and the micro:bit, RP2040-based microcontrollers, the Picade arcade machine kit and the Trilobot educational robot kit. It also resells products from other makers such as Adafruit and SparkFun, and it runs a web shop, a wholesale shop for schools and makers, and a network of more than 100 distributors around the world.
The company was founded by Jon Williamson and Paul Beech. Its About page says its priorities are customer satisfaction, reducing its environmental impact through reusable or biodegradable packaging and recycling, and giving back to the maker community through sponsorship and a commitment to open-source software. Open source means the designs and code are shared so others can learn from them and build on them. The name comes from the first two letters of Pirate, Monkey, Robot and Ninja, a pronunciation the company jokes is lost to history.
Pimoroni is a Sheffield company. Its About page gives its address as Unit 1, Parkway Business Park, Parkway Drive, Sheffield, and says it moved into that building in 2021. It is registered in England and Wales. Reference sources add that it was named the second fastest-growing manufacturing company in the UK by the University of Sheffield in 2017 and that it opened a site in Essen, Germany, that year. The company describes itself as proudly independent and part of Sheffield's manufacturing tradition.
The company says it employs about forty people across engineering, creative, administration, production, shipping, support and logistics. It runs its own circuit board production lines and says it upgraded to a Europlacer pick-and-place machine in 2020, the first in the UK. Every board is plugged in and tested by the production team before it ships. Its tone is playful: it has a pirate-face sign and has named its laser cutters after Sesame Street characters. It also builds custom boards for universities and companies including Google, Microsoft and GitHub, which shows the quality of its work. These are the company's own descriptions.
The mix of roles at a company like this is wide. Electronics and software engineers design the boards, production staff run the machines, designers and writers produce guides and product pages, and support, shipping and wholesale teams keep customers happy. Because it works so closely with the maker community, people who enjoy tinkering with electronics and sharing what they learn, whether in school clubs or at home, will find plenty in common with the team.
Website: shop.pimoroni.com
PURPOSE helps school and university students explore 62 sectors and over 1,000 entry-level careers in the UK, then connects them directly with employers.
Explore PURPOSE