The Venture Codex

Led · Series A · Nov 2024

Aviz Networks develops AI-driven, vendor-agnostic networking software, including Community SONiC solutions, network visibility tools, and AI-driven management capabilities. Its Aviz AI Networking Stack offers orchestration, observability, real-time alerts, performance monitoring, RoCE support, packet brokers, service nodes, and a vendor-agnostic data lake powering an LLM-based Network Copilot. The stack integrates with the majority of ASICs, switches, GPUs, DPUs, and servers to provide customers hardware flexibility, operational control, and cost savings. Aviz’s solutions have been deployed by e-commerce platforms, telecommunications providers, retailers, GPU-as-a-service providers, cloud service providers, and diverse enterprise networks. The company plans to increase its workforce in the US and globally, further penetrate key sectors, and scale customer deployments while expanding its partner ecosystem. Aviz recently raised a $17 million Series A to accelerate market expansion and scale deployments. Aviz Networks is an open networking software company providing switch‑platform‑agnostic applications and APIs for network observability, orchestration, and assurance for cloud‑scale telecom and enterprise infrastructures. It offers disaggregated support for multi‑vendor SONiC deployments across data centers and edge networks. The company markets a multi‑vendor, GenAI‑based networking stack and intends to accelerate customer momentum and SONiC adoption. Aviz is led by CEO Vishal Shukla and is based in San Jose, CA. Financially, Aviz extended its funding to $10M with participation from Cisco Investments, Moment Ventures, Accton and Wistron. Over the past 12 months it has rapidly scaled customers, revenue, and operational headcount to meet increasing demand across multiple geographies. Aviz Networks provides software solutions for hybrid cloud and edge networks that leverage Multi‑Vendor SONiC. Its core offerings include the Aviz Certified SONiC program, an application‑driven support model with 24/7 SONiC experts, and cloud‑native applications for orchestration, monitoring, and support. Aviz has signed partnerships with all major switch and ASIC vendors to enable interoperable multi‑vendor networks and is making SONiC application‑aware to bring cloud‑native and AI capabilities to hybrid networks. The company cites deployments by a leading web‑scale enterprise customer that uses tens of thousands of devices and uses Aviz’s SONiC Enterprise Suite to manage their fabric. The founding team has backgrounds at Nvidia (Mellanox), AWS, and F5; Vishal Shukla is CEO, Chidambaram B is CTO, and Gautam Agrawal is CPO. Aviz’s stated vision is to drive open‑source networking via disaggregated cloud‑native applications and accelerate SONiC adoption across data center and edge networks.

Participated · Series A · Oct 2024

Monogoto offers a software-defined connectivity platform that centralizes management of cellular, private LTE/5G and satellite connections for devices and fleets. The platform spans 180 countries and 550 networks and supports both SIM-based and software connectivity solutions. Customers include businesses in asset tracking, smart metering, fleet management and telematics, point-of-sale, retail, healthcare, and micromobility. The company was co-founded by CEO Itamar Kunik and CTO Maor Efrati; Kunik previously worked on telecom infrastructure projects with Israel’s 8200 unit. Monogoto is positioned as a developer-friendly API-style alternative for provisioning connectivity at scale. Financially, the company disclosed a $27M Series A and has raised $38M in total to date; valuation was not disclosed. Monogoto offers a global, cloud-based cellular connectivity platform and APIs that enable enterprises and developers to design, build, manage, control and scale IoT and M2M applications. Its platform connects and controls cellular-based sensors and devices across use cases such as point-of-sale terminals, ATMs, wearables, smart lighting, fleets and package tracking. The company serves more than 100 customers worldwide, including Sodaq, Connected You, Origin GPS and Tvilight. Monogoto intends to use new funding to expand its U.S. presence with a San Francisco office, grow product sales, and boost brand awareness and market penetration. It also plans to enrich B2D assets with additional APIs, documentation and developer tools, extend its global points of presence, and expedite and strengthen its network’s 5G infrastructure. The company is led by CEO Itamar Kunik.

Participated · Equity · Oct 2024

DataPelago unveiled a Universal Data Processing Engine designed to accelerate any engine, including open-source ones, on any hardware and for any data type to support GenAI and analytics workloads. The engine is offered as an end-to-end solution or can integrate with Substrait-based open source frameworks to turbocharge Spark and Trino, delivering disruptive price/performance without changing applications or workflows. It integrates with existing data stores and lakehouse platforms to avoid data migration and vendor lock-in. Architecturally the engine comprises three layers—DataVM (a domain-specific ISA for data operators), DataOS (maps data operations to heterogeneous accelerated computing elements), and DataApp (a pluggable integration layer)—which together claim one to two orders of magnitude performance gains versus today’s query engines. Targeted use cases include analyzing billions of transactions while maintaining data freshness, AI-driven threat detection at wire-line speeds, and scalable deployment of training, fine-tuning, and RAG inference pipelines. Co-founder and CEO Rajan Goyal, who has 20+ years building accelerated computing solutions, has assembled a multidisciplinary team to develop the technology and bring it to market; the company launched from stealth with $47 million in funding.

Participated · Series B · Oct 2022

SiMa.ai builds the Modalix MLSoC platform and associated System-on-Modules to enable real-time Physical AI at the edge, targeting robotics, autonomous systems, and industrial automation. Its platform emphasizes a sophisticated memory hierarchy and power-efficient compute to support complex workloads such as large language models and vision-language models on edge devices. SiMa.ai has integrated Micron’s LPDDR5X into Modalix to increase bandwidth efficiency and power optimization. The company pairs its hardware with Palette software to simplify deployment and to provide a path from prototype to production. SiMa.ai positions Modalix as a validated Physical AI solution within an ecosystem that includes partners such as Arm, Cerence AI, L&T Technology Services, Synopsys, TSMC, and Wind River. The Micron investment is intended to deepen hardware/software co-optimization and leverage Micron’s supply-chain relationships to accelerate customer deployments.

Participated · Seed · Jul 2022

iLoF operates an AI and photonics platform that collects large-scale biological data to create digital twins and a digital library of biomarkers and disease subtypes. The platform is intended to enable biotech and pharmaceutical companies to make clinical trials faster, cheaper, and more patient-centric. The company says different patient profiles can be selected and screened to speed development of personalised treatments and support humane clinical trials. iLoF is fast-tracking ongoing engagements and pilots with global corporations in the pharmaceutical, biotech, and clinical space. Founders Mehak Mumtaz and Luis Valente plan to evolve the platform from a next-generation bioinformatics tool toward a disease screening product to directly help patients. Financially, iLoF raised a $4.1M seed round and a $900k ERDF grant and has $8M in total funding to date. iLoF has developed a disruptive, patented platform that detects nanoscale biomolecules in blood to generate optical ‘fingerprints’ of a patient’s phenotype and disease stage. The cloud-based library aggregates individual nano-sized biomarkers and patient biological profiles correlated with heterogeneous diseases to aid screening and clinical trial matching. The agnostic, label-free technology aims to identify suitable patients for trials, speed drug discovery, and reduce cost and time for pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners. The startup has applied the platform to gastric cancer cell detection and is adapting it to forecast clinical evolution in COVID-19 patients in hospital care. Currently engaged with leading biotechs, pharmas and hospitals, iLoF positions its tools to enable more personalized, non-invasive treatment stratification. Financially, iLoF recently secured additional funding and previously raised support from EIT Health as it scales collaborations and library development.