Participated · Series A · Nov 2024

Wherobots is a serverless Spatial Intelligence Cloud developed by the original creators of Apache Sedona (Mo Sarwat and Jia Yu). The platform enables high-performance geospatial ETL, analytics, and computer vision at planetary scale, with unified support for vector and raster data accessible via SQL, Python, and Java/Scala. Wherobots says customers can run spatial workloads up to 20x faster than modern cloud analytics engines, lowering cost and speeding product development. It targets industries including insurance, environmental, transportation, logistics, supply chain, and agriculture and is used alongside Apache Sedona by enterprises such as Amazon, NVIDIA, Mercedes Benz, and others. Apache Sedona, incubated by the founders and compatible with Wherobots, is growing 150% YoY with nearly 40M downloads. The company has made its service available on the AWS Marketplace and is positioning the funding to accelerate product development and go-to-market expansion. Wherobots offers a spatial compute and AI engine that lets users develop geospatial analytics applications and deploy them with major cloud data services. Its product uses the same API as Apache Sedona but adds faster spatial processing, a spatial data usage dashboard and other enterprise features. The founders, Mo Sarwat and Jia Yu, previously launched Apache Sedona in 2015 and incorporated Wherobots in June 2022 to commercialize an enterprise-focused platform. The company positions itself as a fully managed, fully provisioned, scalable cloud data platform for spatial analytics and AI, claiming better speed and cloud efficiency than Apache Sedona. Wherobots has released an MVP for beta testing and targets industries including insurance, fleet management and automotive, agriculture, and real estate. The team currently comprises seven full-time employees and three interns and is in a building phase focused on product development and adoption.

Participated · Series A · Oct 2024

Beacon AI is an aviation software technology company based in San Carlos, California, led by CEO Matt Cox. The company develops advanced AI systems to augment commercial and defense pilots and aims to make flight operations safer and more efficient. Its flagship products include Murdock, an AI-powered pilot assistant, and Lighthouse, a data platform and flight management system. Beacon AI has won ten Department of Defense contracts and agreements and is seeing rapidly growing commercial interest. The company intends to use new funding to expand its team, deliver on existing DOD and commercial engagements, and accelerate product deployment.

Participated · Series B · Sep 2024

AIR COMPANY develops a modular, energy-efficient AIRMADE™ platform that transforms captured CO₂ and hydrogen into high-demand synthetic fuels and chemicals. The company is focused on scalable sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) that integrates into existing aircraft and infrastructure. Its technology is designed to strengthen fuel supply chains, bolster energy security, and support domestic job creation. AIR COMPANY has validated its approach through commercial partnerships with airlines including JetBlue and Virgin Atlantic and through multiple government contracts, including with NASA and the Defense Innovation Unit. The company has received industry recognition such as the EPA Green Chemistry Challenge Award and the XPrize for Carbon Removal. New Series B capital will bolster engineering and R&D to accelerate large-scale production of CO₂-derived SAF. Air Company makes vodka, hand sanitizer and eau de parfum from CO2 using a process that converts carbon dioxide, water and solar energy into pure ethanol. The company sells consumer products direct and through distribution partners, and reports its vodka is frequently sold out. Air Company operates its own facilities (not contract manufacturers) to limit transportation emissions and runs them on renewable power, though current volumes are relatively low versus traditional manufacturers. Leadership says the firm intends to transition its technology into industrial sectors to scale impact and displace fossil carbon. The company plans to use new capital to build a third facility housing a commercial-scale carbon utilization system to exponentially increase CO2-derived ethanol and sustainable fuel production. Air Company debuted its CO2-made alcoholic beverage in 2019 and positions itself as a carbon technology company focused on carbon-negative alcohols.

Participated · Series A · Jul 2024

Aether Fuels is a clean-energy company commercializing Aether Auror™, a process that transforms industrial waste gas and biomethane into CORSIA-certified sustainable aviation fuel with more than 70 % greenhouse-gas reductions. Its flagship initiative, Project Beacon, is a 50 barrels-per-day (2,000 t per year) SAF plant being co-developed with Aster at the latter’s Bukom Island refinery in Singapore; engineering is underway, construction is slated for 2026, and commercial operations are targeted for 2028. The company is also planning to open a Singapore R&D center in 2026 to support ongoing technology scale-up. To bolster execution, Aether has added Stu Stott as Global Vice President of Projects and expanded its regional business development team. Including the latest round, Aether has raised more than US$60 million to date, funding pilot activities in the U.S. and the move from demonstration to commercial deployment. The new capital will accelerate Project Beacon and further maturation of its core technology.

Participated · Series A · Feb 2024

NLX provides an end-to-end enterprise AI platform to create, manage, deploy and analyze chat, voice, and multimodal conversational applications, leveraging generative AI and cloud software. The platform offers modularity and access to AI models from providers including Amazon, Google, Microsoft and the open-source community. NLX serves large and enterprise brands, with customers such as Red Bull and Copa Airlines and engagements with Comcast following participation in the Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs accelerator. Its largest deployment is rolled out in 90 countries and supports over 65 languages and locales. Led by CEO Andrei Papancea, the company plans to use new funding to expand operations and accelerate development efforts. The company is based in New York City. NLX provides a unified, no-code SaaS platform to build, manage, and analyze AI-powered voice, chat, and multimodal conversational applications at scale. The platform combines conversational AI with human support workflows to enable personalized self-service for customers. In January 2023 the company raised $4.6M in additional funding to fuel marketplace expansion and product improvements, bringing total financing to $9.6M to date. IAG Capital Partners led the new investment, with previous backers JetBlue Ventures and Flying Fish Ventures participating. Since the prior raise NLX launched Showroom, a live, personalized multimodal conversational experience developed with Amazon Web Services. The company serves enterprise, Fortune 200, and midsized clients, including Compañía Panameña de Aviación S.A., Red Bull GmbH, LifeMiles Ltd., and Mon Cheri Bridals LLC. NLX is a New York-based provider of an automated, personalized customer self-service software platform. Its Voice Compass product is a voice-driven self-service platform that automates customer support by guiding customers through an onscreen journey to complete tasks. The company’s conversational self-service automation combines AI and human support experience to enable travel and hospitality customers to resolve issues faster and more cost-effectively. In January 2022 NLX raised $5M in seed funding led by Aquila Capital Partners with participation from Flying Fish Partners, Sage Venture Partners, and JetBlue Technology Ventures. The company intends to use the funds to continue to expand operations and its business reach. Andrei Papancea is CEO and cofounder.