The Venture Codex

Led · Equity · Oct 2022

LIDROTEC builds proprietary laser systems that combine high-precision cutting with fluid-based cooling and cleaning to enable low-damage chip singulation. Its liquid-mediated laser dicing reduces material damage, narrows heat-affected zones, and cuts particle defects, which lowers breakage rates and increases yields—particularly for hard-to-dice materials and thin semiconductors. The company targets compound semiconductor, power device, photonics, and leading-edge semiconductor markets. LIDROTEC plans to use the funding to accelerate product development and commercialization, expand its team, and scale global delivery of its solutions. Financially, it has closed a $13.5 million Series A-2 financing co-led by Lam Capital and Goose Capital, with participation from ZEISS Ventures, NRW.BANK, Gründerfonds Ruhr and other investors. Company leadership and investors described the round as validation of the technology and a step toward broader commercial deployment. Lidrotec is a Bochum, Germany–based company that has developed a patent-pending wafer-dicing laser technology for the semiconductor industry. Its innovation uses liquids in the laser processing zone to cool and rinse wafers during cutting, producing thinner cuts, higher precision, clean surfaces, virtually no damage, and higher processing speeds without adapting production lines. Lidrotec won Round 5 of the Luminate NY accelerator and will receive a $1 million investment from New York State through the Finger Lakes Forward Upstate Revitalization Initiative. As part of the award, the company must establish operations in the Finger Lakes region for at least 18 months. Through Luminate NY Lidrotec was introduced to AIM Photonics, which is helping the company build infrastructure to develop the next iteration of its technology. CEO Alexander Igelmann said the program provided U.S. network, supplier, and client contacts that will help meet development milestones over the next two years, including market validation.

Participated · Series A · Jun 2021

Toggle is a New York-based robotics company that builds machines to bend rebar used in heavy construction. The startup has raised a total of $15 million to date, including an initial $8M Series A announced in 2021 and a recent $3M Series A extension. The new funds will be used to ramp up robotic production and expand hiring, with roles focused on engineering and operations. Toggle’s headcount is currently 40 and the company plans to double that over the next year ahead of an upcoming Series B. CEO Daniel Blank says demand is being driven by renewed interest in American manufacturing, infrastructure and renewable energy investments and by pandemic-era pressures such as supply-chain disruptions, inflation, and rising labor costs that are accelerating automation and prefab construction methods. Toggle builds robotics technology that automates the assembly of rebar, the foundational building material, completing work in a fraction of the time of manual methods. The company targets large construction projects and says its tools add capacity while saving time and cost, with a stated focus on renewable energy and sustainable urban development. Toggle announced an $8 million Series A to expand production capacity. The startup previously raised a $3 million seed round in late 2019. Proceeds from the new round will fund increased headcount and an upgrade to a new 50,000 square foot production facility. The raise comes amid rising investor interest in robotics and construction automation. Toggle is a Brooklyn-based, 15-person robotics startup that builds robots to fabricate and assemble rebar. Its systems are designed to work alongside existing robotics and steel fabrication technologies and, by the company’s count, can speed the process up to five times. Toggle has begun a soft launch for a wide range of projects in New York City and the surrounding area. The company expects to ramp toward commercial production over the next year and a half. CEO Daniel Blank says the recent seed funding will be used for R&D, development of both hardware and software around assembly and fabrication automation, and to grow the engineering team. The funding also provides a foundation for Toggle’s manufacturing operation, which is already supplying services and materials to customers in the NYC region.

Led · Equity · Jun 2019

Ovitz is a Rochester-based company that has developed an individualized, vision-enhancing contact lens intended to improve users' vision quality—clarity, contrast, and depth perception. The company was named the Round II winner of the Luminate NY accelerator competition and received the top prize at the program's Demo Day. As the winner, Ovitz will receive $1 million in follow-on funding from New York State through the Finger Lakes Forward Upstate Revitalization Initiative. The award requires Ovitz to establish operations in Rochester for at least the next 18 months, and the company’s CEO said they plan to continue to grow the company in Rochester and give back to the community. Ovitz participated in Luminate NY, the optics, photonics and imaging accelerator administered by NextCorps, which selects promising companies each year and provides training and investment opportunities. No revenue or user metrics were disclosed in the announcement.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2018

Artemis, previously Agrilyst, builds an enterprise Cultivation Management Platform (CMP) for indoor farms and greenhouse operators. The platform collects operational data (including crop yields), manages workers, and emphasizes compliance with food-safety and local cannabis regulations. It integrates with existing systems ranging from climate control to ERP tools and point-of-sale systems to give operators a single view of operations. Compliance is a core focus, and the company added Dr. Kathleen Merrigan to its board; Merrigan is a former U.S. deputy secretary of agriculture and a venture partner at Astanor Ventures. Cannabis now represents about half of Artemis’s revenue, and its clients are collectively worth $5 billion. The company plans to use the new funding to scale sales and expand its team. Agrilyst provides an intelligent indoor farming platform that aggregates sensor data to help growers monitor and manage crop growth and health. Its tools support more than 50 vegetables and over 800 crops, and the service is available in 10 countries. The company added 100 new customers in 2017 and reported 500% growth in both revenue and customers since 2016. Agrilyst has expanded product support to include cannabis, floriculture, and insect production. The team recently appointed a new CTO and a VP of Customer Success while Allison Kopf remains co‑founder and CEO. The company intends to use the new funding to support growth, expand into new markets and product lines, and leverage investor ties to enter the Chinese market. Agrilyst builds a Software-as-a-Service platform that aggregates sensor data and manual inputs to provide analytics and management tools for indoor growers. The product includes workflow management, inventory tracking, and nutrient and pest management, and it delivers data-driven recommendations to growers. The company recently launched a version specifically optimized for vegetable producers and improved onboarding. Agrilyst can import data from popular indoor-agriculture sensors and also allows growers to import spreadsheets when sensors aren’t used. The team is about a year old and has six employees. Agrilyst plans to support cannabis growers starting in July and aims to add flavor profiling by capturing taste data over time; it does not plan to build hardware itself but will support many third-party sensors.

Participated · Series B · May 2016

SeamlessDocs offers a cloud-based product suite (SeamlessGov) that enables governments to digitize and automate paper forms and workflows. The platform has processed submissions from over 27 million citizens. The company says its service has generated tens of millions of dollars in government processing cost savings. Founded in 2011 and led by CEO Jonathon Ende, SeamlessDocs is focused on continuing product investment and expanding its business reach. The firm completed a $7.5M funding round to support those plans and has now raised more than $18.5M in total capital. SeamlessDocs converts government PDF forms into clickable, interactive digital forms compatible with all platforms and screen sizes. The company integrates with local governments to digitize forms, allowing citizens to fill, sign, and complete transactions on a phone without printing, faxing, or mailing. It says it currently works with hundreds of local governments and generates revenue via a per-seat annual charge that provides unlimited form conversion. With the new funding, SeamlessDocs plans to target federal agencies and branches of government. The company will use proceeds to hire more engineers, sales staff, and customer-service representatives. Founder and CEO Jonathon Ende has framed the mission as making government interactions beautiful and easy. SeamlessDocs provides a document automation portal that moves traditionally offline government forms online and mobile by converting any PDF into a smart form. The product supports legal eSignatures, attachments, and payment integration to streamline citizen interactions. The company targets governments to reduce paperwork, data entry costs, and improve the user experience. SeamlessDocs has signed up hundreds of governments in almost every U.S. state, with the city of Los Angeles among its largest clients. Pricing runs in the thousands of dollars and varies by the population of the government customer. The company originally launched as Bizodo out of the ERA Accelerator and rebranded and refocused on government customers.