Led · Seed · May 2018

Motion Gestures builds AI software for hand tracking and gesture recognition that runs on third-party cameras. The software supports any camera type (RGB, NIR, Depth), any resolution including ultra-low 32×32 pixels, and arbitrary camera positions. It tracks a 21-joint skeleton per hand, provides real-time positional coordinates, recognizes dynamic gestures at low frame rates (e.g., 20 fps), and enables custom gestures without conventional training-data collection. The solution is deployable on ordinary processors and scales the number of tracked hands with available computational resources. The company is engaged with more than 150 OEMs across dozens of industry verticals worldwide. Motion Gestures plans to use the new funds to expand operations and accelerate development; it has raised USD 2M in this Pre-A and USD 10M total including USD 4.5M in Canadian government grants. Motion Gestures develops a patent-pending machine learning platform that lets developers create gesture interfaces in minutes without coding or collecting training data. The software auto-generates training data, works across motion, touch, and vision sensors, and can be deployed to cloud, gateway/hub, and embedded platforms. Its gesture library includes letters, numbers, shapes, symbols, and rotations and supports advanced 2D and 3D gestures. The platform emphasizes ease of testing via smartphone feedback and offers a free developer license to the cloud SDK. The company aims to accelerate mainstream adoption of gesture control across wearables, automotive, consumer electronics, home automation, medical devices, VR, drones, and robotics. Motion Gestures was founded in 2016 in Waterloo, Canada. The company announced it closed seed financing to further development and begin international marketing.

Participated · Series A · Oct 2016

Factom, Inc. is an Austin, TX–based blockchain as-a-service (BaaS) technology company led by co-founder and CEO Peter Kirby. The company leverages blockchain technology to create secure and shareable software and systems for people and institutions. Factom recently launched Factom Harmony, a product intended to bring transparency and immutable audit records for compliance in the U.S. mortgage industry. The firm targets applications that require tamper-evident records and auditability. Financially, Factom closed an $8.029m Series A round in which an earlier $5.326m tranche was supplemented by an additional $2.70m to finish the round. Factom, led by CEO Peter Kirby, develops blockchain-as-a-service products aimed at improving compliance, identity, transparent assets, and securities systems for enterprise, government and non-profit customers. Its products include Factom Harmony, which converts document management solutions into a blockchain-based document platform, and Acolyte, which builds reputation for smart contract execution. The company states a mission “to make the world’s systems honest” by applying blockchain solutions across multiple sectors. Factom is based in Austin, Texas. In August 2017 the company completed a funding event that altered its ownership structure and board composition. No revenue or user metrics were disclosed in the article. Factom is an Austin, Texas–based blockchain technology company that secures data via decentralization. Its open-source core software underpins premium products Factom Apollo and Factom Iris, designed to secure records and identity. The company raised $4.2M in a Series A equity round to expand operations and further develop its technology and product suite. The round was led by Tim Draper of Draper Associates and included a broad mix of strategic and angel investors. Factom intends to use the proceeds to grow operations and advance its core offerings. Leadership comprises CEO and Co-founder Peter Kirby and Chief Architect and Co-founder Paul Snow. Factom provides software that lets companies maintain permanent, time-stamped records tied to blockchains, reducing the cost and complexity of audits, records management and regulatory compliance. Its tools enable transparent accountability systems and immutable records that can be synced and shared among multiple parties, with validation and verification tools for real-time auditing and future business-process analysis. The company positions its audit and verification tools for use across financial services, insurance claims processing, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, telecoms, mobile banking and online real estate transactions. Factom has sold US$1.2m of its "Factoid" software licenses to over 1,500 software purchasers and has established an active developer network building integrations. The company raised $400k in seed funding and plans to use the proceeds to grow sales and expand the developer network while integrating additional applications. Factom is negotiating engagements with several large US companies in banking, insurance and healthcare and intends to raise a Series A in the first half of 2016. Factom offers a data and record-keeping layer built on top of Bitcoin, positioning itself as a protocol for securing records and data. The project recently debuted its first release client and is preparing a public beta client. It closed a $1.1M equity crowdsale hosted by BnkToTheFuture and exceeded its minimum funding target. Earlier in the year Factom raised 2,278 BTC (about $540,000) through a public sale of factoids, its transaction token. Prior to these raises the project had been bootstrapped by an undisclosed network of private investors. The Factom Foundation relocated to London and has cited its permissive stance on software sales as a factor in its development and fundraising momentum. The raise drew notable interest from state governments and financial institutions, including a Honduras land-title initiative and advisory work with USAA.

Participated · Series A · Sep 2016

Cyclica offers an integrated proteome-wide drug discovery platform that applies structure-based, AI-augmented in silico methods to polypharmacology. Its core products include Ligand Design and Ligand Express, powered by MatchMaker™, a deep-learning proteome screening technology, and POEM™, a supervised learning tool for predicting molecular properties. The platform is designed to prioritize novel, drug-like chemical matter based on on- and off-target polypharmacological profiles and developmental properties. The company plans to use new funding to continue innovation on its platform and to expand application within the pharmaceutical industry and into adjacent sectors such as agro-chemicals. Cyclica is accelerating a commercial strategy to create and own hundreds of drug discovery programs via spin-outs and joint ventures, facilitated by its Cyclica Academic Partnership Program (CAPP). Recent collaborations cited include EntheogeniX Biosciences, NineteenGale Therapeutics, Rosetta Therapeutics, the Rare Diseases Medicine Accelerator, a joint venture with Mannin Research, and two stealth JVs encompassing over 50 programs. Cyclica provides a predictive analytics platform designed to evaluate and compare small molecules and predict how each will interact with the human proteome. Its platform currently includes PROBEx (proteome-docking), SWITCHx (ligand effect prediction) and DIVEx (systems biology and drug-protein interactomes). The company intends to use new funding to scale sales and marketing efforts and to expand innovation through continued product development. Cyclica completed a $2.4M financing (Series A1) to support these initiatives. The company is led by President and CEO Naheed Kurji. The product is positioned to augment drug discovery pipelines and advance assets toward the bedside. Cyclica Inc. is a Toronto-based startup that uses big data and applied analytic techniques to increase productivity in pharmaceutical research and development. Led by CEO Paul Angelico, the company develops pharmaceutical drugs, nutraceutical ingredients, and personal care products using its proprietary Ligand Express™ computational analysis platform. Ligand Express simulates the interaction of compounds with all known human proteins to assess safety, efficacy and cross-reactivity. Through a partnership with IBM Research, Cyclica is creating vast stores of proprietary data to support its analyses. The company has received seed funding from GreenSky Accelerator Fund I and is still accepting angel investment; the amount was not disclosed. Cyclica said the seed proceeds will be used to accelerate growth.