Participated · Series A · Sep 2023

Boxbot develops a three-dimensional conveyor system designed to increase storage density for parcels inside a significantly smaller footprint. The product shares DNA with systems like Attabotics and Autostore but is tailored specifically for parcel handling. The company pivoted from autonomous last-mile delivery (including a branded van) to warehouse-focused parcel storage after strong customer interest in its package retrieval technology. Boxbot has piloted the system with customers and identified multiple sites for testing across last-mile delivery centers, bonded storage warehouses, and customer pickup locations. Its roadmap for the next year includes deploying production-level systems into real-world operating environments and then scaling across multiple facilities and additional customers. The Alameda-based startup has about 20 employees, is hiring, and will use recent funding to accelerate go-to-market efforts. Boxbot is developing self-driving delivery vehicles that combine robotics and autonomous systems to tackle last-mile logistics. The company was co-founded in 2016 by Austin Oehlerking and Mark Godwin and is based in Oakland, CA. Its team includes engineers with experience at Tesla, Uber, Amazon, Getaround and Northrop Grumman. Boxbot raised $7.5M in a seed round led by Artiman Ventures. With this round the company has raised a total of $9.0M to date. The company previously raised $1.5M in pre-seed funding from Pear Ventures, Afore Capital, The House Fund, The Graduate Syndicate and angel investors. Boxbot is a stealth startup building a last-mile delivery solution that the founders suggest could combine aspects of autonomy and drones. The company was founded by Austin Oehlerking and Mark Godwin, who have backgrounds at Tesla, Uber and in academic robotics research. Boxbot won the Pear Berkeley Challenge and received a $250,000 equity commitment from Pear VC. At the same time it secured seed investments from House Capital, Afore Capital and The Graduate Syndicate. Pear’s $250,000 award includes a provision gifting 10% of Pear’s equity stake back to UC Berkeley. Beyond the prize and seed backers, Boxbot has not disclosed additional product details or financial metrics while remaining in stealth.

Participated · Series E · Jun 2022

Visby Medical is an infectious-disease diagnostics company whose flagship product is a disposable, handheld Personal PCR platform that produces sample-to-result answers in less than 30 minutes. The device has already secured FDA Emergency Use Authorization for use in moderate-complexity CLIA laboratories and is engineered for future point-of-care and over-the-counter settings. By eliminating the need for sample transport and central-lab processing, Visby aims to decentralize testing and speed clinical decision making. In October 2020 the company received Phase 2 funding from the NIH’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) program, validating both the technology and its potential impact on national testing capacity. Management plans to apply the funds toward high-volume production lines, supplier-base security, and manufacturing automation so it can meet growing demand. Visby is also working with government and private partners to expedite deployment of its COVID-19 test and expand its diagnostic menu over time. Although exact revenue or unit shipment figures were not disclosed, the funding underscores Visby’s move from pilot manufacturing to large-scale commercialization.

Led · Equity · Jan 2022

Pavilion Data Systems is a San Jose, Calif.-based provider of a data analytics acceleration platform and a pioneer of NVMe-oF. Its Pavilion HyperParallel Data Platform, powered by Pavilion HyperOS, targets GPU-based computing and delivers high performance, density, ultra-low latency, scalability and flexibility. The platform complements AI/ML, HPC, analytics, edge and other data-driven workloads and serves enterprises seeking faster, scalable data I/O. Pavilion reported expanded deployments within federal agencies and increased analytics penetration at multiple Fortune 500 customers, including a top-20 bank, a top credit agency, and a large hedge fund. The company says it doubled new customers and opened new sales offices in Atlanta, Boston, and London while expanding into life sciences, financial, and media and entertainment verticals. Pavilion intends to use new funding to continue expanding operations and broaden its business reach. Pavilion Data Systems develops an ultra-fast, rack-scale NVMe-over-Fabrics storage platform and an OPENCHOICE Storage business model that lets customers reuse standard NVMe SSDs or buy drives directly from makers. Its platform targets massively-parallel modern applications and is used in AI, machine learning, and deep learning workloads across IBM Spectrum Scale, MySQL, NoSQL, and Pivotal Greenplum, and supports Kubernetes, VMware and Pivotal Cloud Foundry. The company reports repeat sales and said it delivered a large number of systems in 2019, with many customers purchasing additional arrays as they scale out. Pavilion has received industry recognition (Flash Memory Summit Best of Show – Most Innovative Startup 2019), been named an IDC NVMe over TCP Innovator, and holds 16 patents to date. The company is active in standards and research groups including NVMexpress, SNIA, STAC Research, and TACC's STAR Program. Pavilion is based in San Jose, Calif., and plans to use new funding to accelerate product delivery, expand into new markets (including Asia), and grow its team to meet customer demand.

Participated · Series C · Jul 2021

Virsec provides the Virsec Security Platform (VSP), which stops sophisticated attacks at their first point of insurgence and prevents adversaries from gaining dwell time in software. The platform delivers in-depth visibility across entire workloads and detects and blocks known and unknown threats that can evade heuristic and endpoint solutions. VSP maps the expected performance of each application on a workload, protects the memory applications use to execute, and ensures application components are correct and unmodified before execution; deviations are treated as threats. Led by CEO Dave Furneaux, the company intends to use newly raised funds to expand operations and its business reach. The raise brought the company’s total funding to $137M. Virsec has developed a technology platform that protects critical applications from the inside, safeguarding processes in memory and pinpointing attacks in real time. Its patented Trusted Execution™ technology maps acceptable application execution and instantly detects deviations caused by attacks. The solution has been deployed and gone through extensive validation with early-adopter customers in critical infrastructure, defense, financial services, and healthcare. The company holds a portfolio of patents with more than 20 applications filed and 12 already granted. Virsec is led by CEO Atiq Raza. It plans to use the new funding to accelerate product innovation and global expansion.

Participated · Series A · Aug 2020

SmarterBiz is an AI-powered customer experience platform that enables remote management of customer journeys and agent life cycles. The company says it has helped several enterprises, including unicorns, build scalable, flexible, and hyper-local customer experience solutions cost-effectively. Founded in 2014 by Rajesh Bernard, Vijay Krishna, and Prateek Mehta and based in Bengaluru, SmarterBiz focuses on delivering scalable CX tooling for enterprises. It secured Rs 8 crore in a pre-Series A funding round to support growth. The company plans to use the funds to grow ARR eightfold this year and to create more gig opportunities in the market.