Participated · Series A · Feb 2021

Edgybees offers a Visual Intelligence Platform that geotags and augments aerial and live video streams in real time to register and track assets. Its Argus product, launched about a year ago, makes it easier for users to bring their own drones and live video to the company’s geo‑registration engine. Typical customers include first responders looking to track assets and personnel during emergencies; the company also targets defense, insurance, industrial drone users and other commercial use cases such as sports visualization. Edgybees says its mission is to ensure positive human outcomes during life‑saving missions and to expand its global footprint. The company began in Israel and is now based in San Diego. Financially, Edgybees announced a $9.5M Series A following a $5.5M seed round announced almost exactly two years earlier. Edgybees develops AR software that overlays road names, personnel locations, vehicles and other assets onto drone video feeds to improve situational awareness for emergency teams. The Santa Clara–based startup’s system has been used by responders during Northern California wildfires and Florida hurricane floods. The company originally demonstrated its technology in a racing-game application with DJI, and has since focused on commercial and industrial drone uses in fire, public safety and search-and-rescue. Edgybees plans to expand its AR platform to additional platforms and verticals including defense, smart cities, automotive and broadcast media. Leadership includes co-founder and CEO Adam Kaplan and CTO Menashe Haskin, formerly head of Amazon’s Prime Air office in Israel. Financially, the company recently closed a $5.5 million seed funding round to support that expansion.

Participated · Series B · Apr 2020

Mojo Vision pioneers a wafers-in, wafers-out micro-LED platform intended to enable massively parallel optical I/O for AI infrastructure. Its integrated approach combines advanced 300mm CMOS circuitry, GaN-on-silicon micro-LED emitters, silicon photodetectors, multicore fiber bundles, custom micro-lens arrays, and proprietary software and tools. The company says this architecture enables thousands of optical channels in a compact footprint, delivering high bandwidth density, low energy per bit, and built-in redundancy. Mojo Vision has framed its technology as relevant to terrestrial data centers as well as distributed and orbital computing architectures where power, weight, and scalability matter. The company is based in Cupertino, Calif., and recently completed a $75 million financing the prior August before securing the $17.5 million strategic investment from Future Ventures. Mojo Vision is collaborating with Marvell to develop high-density micro-LED connectivity solutions as it advances commercialization.

Led · Series D · Jul 2017

Nok Nok Labs delivers client and server authentication software (the Nok Nok S3 Authentication Suite) that leverages built-in device capabilities such as fingerprint sensors, cameras and secure silicon to provide FIDO-certified, strong authentication for mobile and web applications. The company supports a wide range of authentication technologies from a unified platform and lists customers and partners including AliPay, Lenovo, NTT DOCOMO, PayPal and Samsung. Nok Nok positions itself as a leader in commercial FIDO deployments and emphasizes user-friendly, standards-based security and privacy. With the new funding, NNL plans to accelerate deployment of its strong authentication solutions across private and public markets, particularly government, public safety and first responder agencies. The company also intends to expand its channel infrastructure to support growing partner demand. Financially, the company announced a Series D financing in which existing investors participated. Nok Nok Labs provides client and server software that leverages built-in device security (fingerprint sensors, cameras, TPMs) to deliver strong, user-friendly authentication to applications. Launched in 2011 by Ramesh Kesanupalli, the company is a founding member of the FIDO Alliance and lists customers and partners including NTT DOCOMO, PayPal, AliPay, Samsung and Lenovo. Its core product enables applications to use existing device capabilities for authentication rather than relying solely on passwords. The company completed the second and final closing of $8.0M in its Series C, bringing total Series C proceeds to $16.25M. Nok Nok intends to use the funds to expand sales, support and channel infrastructure, pursue global opportunities mainly in the Asia Pacific region, and continue technology innovation around and beyond the FIDO specifications. Nok Nok Labs delivers client and server software that leverages built-in device security such as fingerprint sensors, cameras and Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) to provide user-friendly authentication to applications. The company was launched in 2011 and is led by president and CEO Phillip Dunkelberger. Nok Nok announced support for the FIDO 1.0 specifications with a new version of its NNL S3 Authentication Suite, offering standards-based authentication for customers and partners. The firm intends to use the Series C proceeds to expand the business in the Asia Pacific region, add support capabilities, and partner with key regional strategic investors. Financially, the company reported an $8.25M Series C and has now raised $40M in total capital. Nok Nok Labs develops client and server authentication software that uses existing device security capabilities—built-in fingerprint sensors, cameras and Trusted Platform Modules—to provide authentication to applications. Its NNL™ S3 authentication suite is a centralized platform that enables use of a broad range of FIDO-Ready devices. The company is led by President and CEO Phillip Dunkelberger and founder Ramesh Kesanupalli. Nok Nok plans to use new funding to accelerate development and broaden the reach of the NNL S3 suite, expand sales, business development and marketing, and continue signing partnerships. The company has raised a total of $31.5M to date. Nok Nok Labs develops a Unified Authentication Infrastructure that leverages fingerprint sensors, webcams, Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chips, and voice biometrics to enable organizations to authenticate users across devices and locations. The platform integrates existing hardware and biometric capabilities to allow organizations to authenticate to anyone, anywhere and to any device. The company was founded in November 2011 and is led by CEO Phil Dunkelberger. Nok Nok is based in Palo Alto, California. In December 2013 the company raised $15m in funding to support its efforts. Its advisory board includes security and industry veterans such as Steve Babbage, Bob Lentz, Dr. Larry Ponemon, Nils Puhlmann, Jim Reavis, and Al Sisto.

Participated · Series A · Apr 2017

RapidSOS builds mission-critical artificial-intelligence tools for emergency response, connecting data from more than 600 million devices, sensors and cameras to 22,000+ federal, state, local and defense agencies. Its flagship product, RapidSOS HARMONY, automatically detects emergencies, unifies real-time data and video feeds, and helps coordinate faster, more effective responses. The company’s safety network is used by one million first-responder professionals and has supported over one billion emergencies across a dozen countries. RapidSOS collaborates with more than 200 global enterprises, including half of the U.S. Fortune 10, to modernize 911 and field-response workflows. With the new capital, the team plans to deepen AI-driven interoperability, scale its safety network, and expand internationally while targeting the prevention of one million emergencies by 2030. Having now raised more than $450 million in total, RapidSOS is currently the highest-funded emergency-response AI company.

Participated · Series A · Jan 2017

Neurala offers VIA, a vision-AI software platform built on its Lifelong-DNN (L-DNN) technology to reduce the time, cost and skills required to build and maintain production-quality custom computer-vision solutions. The product is positioned for in-line quality inspection, enabling faster, more accurate and scalable defect detection on manufacturing production lines. Over the last year the company expanded work with system integrators threefold and broadened engagements with OEMs to increase deployment capacity. Neurala launched a European subsidiary in Trieste, Italy to support its growing international footprint while remaining headquartered in Boston, MA. The company says the new capital will be used to evolve VIA for a wider range of applications and accelerate global adoption as manufacturers prioritize automation and Industry 4.0 initiatives. Total invested in Neurala now stands at $26 million. Neurala builds vision AI software focused on industrial and real-world applications, emphasizing edge deployment. Its Lifelong-DNN (L-DNN) technology lowers data requirements and enables continuous learning in the cloud or at the edge. The company helps industrial customers improve quality inspection and monitoring, with deployments across manufacturing, drones, robotics, and smart devices. Neurala’s edge-trained models are designed to extract actionable insights from IIoT sensor and camera data and to be set up by operators without specialized expertise. The company positions its technology as a core enabler of Industry 4.0 initiatives through on-machine, edge AI. Neurala builds the Neurala Brain SDK (marketed as Brains for Bots) to run machine learning locally on resource-constrained devices, enabling incremental learning and on-device updates without continuous network connectivity. The platform is hardware-agnostic, scales from low-end CPUs to high-end GPUs, and integrates with frameworks such as TensorFlow; the SDK supports Linux, Android and iOS. For customers needing custom models, Neurala offers a data ingestion and training service, and it also provides a server-based solution, yielding three complementary business models. The company targets time-sensitive and offline use cases (for example, drones inspecting power lines) and aims to put AI in the hands of toy makers, drone builders and IoT engineers. Early customers include Teal Drones, and Motorola Solutions is noted as an early customer; the founding team and leadership (CEO Massimiliano Versace) have cognitive and neural systems Ph.D.s from Boston University. The article does not disclose revenue or other operating metrics. Neurala builds deep-learning software that enables robots to learn and be instructed by people rather than be explicitly programmed. Its core technology applies artificial neural networks (ANNs) running on GPUs, and the company holds a fundamental patent for that approach. Led by CEO and co-founder Massamiliano Versace, Neurala has secured contracts with NASA and the U.S. Air Force Research Labs to develop deep learning controllers. Use cases cited include autonomous exploration of Mars-like environments, collision avoidance for unmanned aircraft, and persistent surveillance. The company will use the recently raised seed funds to develop practical commercial applications for both flying and ground-based robots that utilize its learning software. Neurala is based in Boston, MA.