Participated · Series B · Oct 2022

Altana operates a collaborative public-private Value Chain Management System that applies artificial intelligence to the world’s largest assembled body of supply chain data to reveal and manage extended supplier and distribution networks. The platform provides capabilities such as accurate Scope 3 carbon measurement, forced-labor detection, multi-tier supply-demand coordination, risk pricing and insurance, and defenses for critical supply chains. Altana’s customer base includes Maersk, Boston Scientific, ZF, the Lloyd’s Insurance Market, US Customs & Border Protection, and multiple UK government agencies. Founded in 2019 by Evan Smith, Peter Swartz, and Raphael Tehranian, the company has connected and organized comprehensive supply chain data to create a shared source of truth. The recent Series C will fund an ambitious phase of product development to power AI-driven, collaborative workflows enabling public and private sectors to manage security, procurement, compliance, trade, and sustainability across multi-tier value chains. Altana uses AI to sift through data points across the supply chain to identify senders and receivers, classify goods in shipments, rate shipments for customs compliance and surface risks and bad actors. The platform supports federated deployments that generate shared intelligence without sharing underlying user data, and it answers questions about products, shipments, companies and networks. Altana has partnerships including Maersk and has worked with organizations such as RUSI to trace sourcing of components and demonstrate how forced labor can enter supply chains. The company reports 20 customers, including UPS and several undisclosed government agencies, and says it is "running at 12x to 15x growth" this year. Founded in December 2018 by Evan Smith, Raphael Tehranian, Peter Swartz and Alan Bersin, Altana plans to use the new capital to fund aggressive platform and product development and expand its workforce to 110 by late 2022. The startup has demonstrated relevance to new laws and compliance regimes, such as the U.S. import ban on goods produced by forced labor, which has driven customer demand. Altana builds a supply chain knowledge graph and an intelligence layer that operates downstream from existing data sources so customers can combine their own data with other sources. The product offers one-off investigations and simulations and aims to provide real-time alerts and predictive capabilities for disruptions, child labor and environmental violations. Altana sells into procurement teams typically managed in the CFO’s office and the majority of its customers are government clients such as border control. The company emphasizes operating downstream from proprietary data holders so customers can keep control of their data while gaining visibility. The three founders—CEO Evan Smith, CTO Peter Swartz and COO Raphael Tehranian—previously worked together on Panjiva, informing the startup’s approach. Executive chairman Alan Bersin, a former commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, serves as a policy advisor. The company announced a $7M seed financing in the round described in the article.

Participated · Seed · Jun 2022

AI Squared helps organizations deliver data and AI insights into business applications. Its solutions are being rolled out across government organizations and Fortune 500 companies in the finance, manufacturing, and health industries. The company’s team has data science experience from Databricks, Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase and the National Security Agency. Led by Founder and CEO Benjamin Harvey, AI Squared is based in Washington, DC. The company recently raised $13.8M in a Series A and intends to use the funds to expand its team and further develop its platform. Launched in 2021, AI Squared provides a low-code platform designed to solve the "last-mile" problem of implementing AI models inside day-to-day applications. The company was founded by Benjamin Harvey, who drew on a decade at the U.S. National Security Agency to build the product. AI Squared uses open-source software and an almost freemium approach to build a community and drive customer acquisition. The company has a cooperative development and research agreement with the NSA, a contract with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, and partnerships with Databricks, Vanguard, Tableau, Salesforce, Nvidia and Microsoft. AI Squared plans to use the seed proceeds to mature the product into community and enterprise editions, expand engineering, sales and marketing teams, and grow community relations. Management is preparing for a Series A and has framed the company’s trajectory toward becoming a future unicorn.

Participated · Series A · Feb 2022

Wallaroo Labs provides an integrated platform for deploying, running, and observing ML models in production with push-button deployment, fast compute, and advanced model insights. The platform supports any data environment (cloud, on‑prem, or edge) and lets data scientists use existing tools and frameworks. Wallaroo advertises single-line Python deployment, up to 80% lower compute costs for batch or streaming analysis, and rapid detection of model underperformance, bottlenecks, and data issues. It serves customers including the US Military and several large brands across use cases such as security, fraud, pricing, recommendations, NLP, and computer vision. The company recently introduced advanced observability features for faster model anomaly and drift detection and input data validation. Wallaroo will use new funding to expand product, sales, and marketing and to release a free community edition. The platform targets the “last mile” of ML to help enterprises deliver measurable business value from models.

Participated · Series A · Feb 2022

Wallaroo Labs offers an integrated platform designed to solve the "last mile" of ML by enabling push-button deployment, fast compute, and advanced model observability. The platform lets data scientists deploy models with a single line of Python and claims up to 80% lower compute costs for batch or streaming analysis. Wallaroo plugs into any data environment (cloud, on-prem, or edge) and supports customers' existing tools and ML frameworks. New observability features detect model accuracy changes, enable anomaly and drift detection, and provide validation checks on input data. Wallaroo serves enterprise use cases including security, fraud, pricing, NLP, recommendations, computer vision, manufacturing, and enterprise AI-as-a-service, and counts the US military and Fortune 500 companies among its customers. The company plans to use new funding to expand product, sales, and marketing and to release a free community edition.

Participated · Series B · Nov 2021

Q-CTRL is a leading quantum infrastructure software company that develops and sells software for quantum systems. The company emphasizes that it already builds and sells software products, which it cites as a differentiator in a sector that remains largely research-focused. Q-CTRL has long positioned itself as a player in quantum infrastructure software. It recently secured an $86.3 million Series B extension, bringing the total Series B to $166 million. The company named GP Bullhound as the lead on the extension and noted participation from prior backers and several new investors. The articles frame the funding as growth capital tied to its commercial software activities. Q-CTRL develops quantum control infrastructure and performance-management software that delivers error‑correcting and suppressing techniques for quantum computers and sensors. The company operates a quantum sensing division and offers an edtech platform called Black Opal. Its performance-management software runs natively on IBM quantum computers and Q-CTRL has been an inaugural member of the IBM Quantum Network since 2018. Founded by Michael J. Biercuk in 2017, Q-CTRL lists international headquarters in Sydney, Los Angeles, Berlin, and Oxford. The company has applied its capabilities in logistics and transport with customers including Transport for NSW and the Australian Army. Near-term plans described in the article include delivering quantum-hardware‑optimized algorithmic solvers for train scheduling to UK transport authorities and prototyping solutions with Oxford Quantum Circuits. Q-CTRL builds AI-enhanced quantum infrastructure software that stabilizes quantum hardware and reduces algorithm errors by over 1,000x. The company sells solutions to end-users, researchers, and platform vendors and is deploying performance management software natively on all IBM cloud-connected quantum computers. Q-CTRL is also commercializing "software-ruggedized" quantum sensors, which have been adopted by Australian Defence for GPS-denied navigation. The team entered the year with over $15 million in bookings and closed the first half of 2023 cash-flow positive (ignoring equity investments), while growing to more than 100 staff and adding new offices in the UK and Berlin. Management says it has preserved large cash reserves and plans to use the Series B to fund technical innovation through its quantum research division, expand the product portfolio, and scale operations. Q-CTRL develops quantum-sensing software intended to reduce errors and optimize both hardware and algorithms for quantum computers. Its product suite includes Black Opal, Boulder Opal, Fire Opal and Open Controls; the company launched Black Opal Enterprise in October and released Black Opal for individuals in April 2022. Q-CTRL reported demonstrations achieving up to approximately 9,000 times improvement in the likelihood that a quantum algorithm would give the correct answer. Commercial traction followed those breakthroughs: sales bookings grew threefold to over $15 million in calendar year 2022 and the company has more than 8,000 users. Customers and partners include U.S. government contracts, Australian defense agencies, quantum hardware firms (Rigetti, IonQ, IBM, Atom Computing, Alice & Bob, Nord Quantique, Pasqal), universities, national labs and corporate partners such as EY, KPMG, Capgemini, Quanscient, Xerox PARC and Classiq. Q-CTRL says it will use new funding to continue product engineering, expand sales and marketing capacity, and grow its headcount from about 80 to roughly 120 across Sydney, Los Angeles and Berlin. Q-CTRL builds quantum control infrastructure software that addresses hardware error and instability to improve quantum computing performance. The company is also developing quantum sensing technologies for acceleration, gravity and magnetic fields and working on space‑qualified sensors with a consortium led by Fleet Space Technologies. Clients and partners include Advanced Navigation, the Australian Department of Defense, the Air Force Research Lab and the Australian Space Agency. Recent technical demonstrations using Q-CTRL’s quantum logic gate technology improved quantum algorithm performance on real machines by 2,680%. Q-CTRL has been expanding commercially: revenue in fiscal 2020–2021 was up 3X year‑over‑year and the nascent quantum sensor business generated over $9 million in sales and bookings after launching in late 2020. The company has grown its team from about 20 to 60 since January 2020 and employs more than 30 Ph.D.-level researchers.