The Venture Codex

Participated · Seed · Jul 2015

Rithmio develops a gesture-recognition software platform aimed at enabling product teams to build personalized gesture-based products for smartphones, wearables and sports equipment. The company was spun out of the University of Illinois by CEO and co-founder Adam Tilton. Rithmio raised an additional $3M in seed funding to support product and engineering work. It intends to use the funds to hire additional engineers. The company previously raised $650K in September 2014. The platform is positioned for integration into a range of consumer devices and sports equipment. Rithmio is developing a gesture-recognition platform that can learn new user-defined gestures in six to ten seconds and then detect, classify and analyze movements in real time. The company demonstrated a wrist-based device navigating a map but intends to enable other brands to embed its software rather than build another wearable. Potential applications mentioned include wearables that track and critique athletic movement and smartphone apps that function like a Wiimote. Co-founded by Adam Tilton and Prashant Mehta, Rithmio focuses on real-time motion analysis through proprietary software. The startup will use recently raised capital to accelerate operational and technical development. It plans to expand its product team and ramp up business and marketing programs.

Participated · Seed · Dec 2014

Strap offers StrapMetrics, a cross-platform analytics SDK for wearable applications, and Strap Kit, a JavaScript toolkit that lets developers write once and deploy across multiple wearable platforms with built-in analytics. The platform runs on devices now including Pebble, Android Wear and Glass, with planned support for Tizen and Apple Watch. The company positions itself as a layer of software that helps developers, enterprises and brands manage fragmented wearable data and optimize sensory insights. Strap plans to grow by expanding product development and increasing partnerships with developers, enterprises and brands. The company was founded in early 2014 and graduated The Brandery accelerator. Strap is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio.