Participated · Seed · Sep 2022

AWAKE Mobility is a Munich-based startup (founded in 2020) that has developed a combined hardware and software platform to harness real-time vehicle data from buses. The technology remotely monitors vehicle condition and generates insights and recommendations for mechanics to reduce downtimes, repair costs, fuel consumption and emissions. Live monitoring also supports improved punctuality and higher customer satisfaction. The company sells to bus operators and fleets and already counts customers in three European countries, including Autobus Oberbayern and VAG Nürnberg. AWAKE plans to launch new services for customers in the next few months and to accelerate its expansion as it continues technical development of its platform. The CEO and co-founder, Daniel Tyoschitz, said the recent capital increase will support further development of the hardware and software platform.

Participated · Series A · Oct 2021

Launched in 2017 and led by CEO Maya Pindeus, Humanising Autonomy develops ethical computer-vision software that understands, predicts, and interprets human behaviour. Its Behaviour AI connects to existing camera platforms or video streams to provide context between people and machines and delivers actionable data and insights. The technology is positioned for deployment across mobility and smart spaces sectors, and the company plans expansion into new verticals. A recent debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank UK is intended to support continued deployment and growth. The financing amount was not disclosed; it follows an $11m Series A in October 2021. Humanising Autonomy aims to help businesses make operational decisions, reduce risk, and enhance human experiences. Humanising Autonomy provides a Behaviour AI platform that uses modular, low-power computer vision to ethically understand and predict human behaviour for real-time and historical analysis. The GDPR-compliant technology is used to inform business decision-making and integrates with chip manufacturers such as Ambarella. The company launched new cloud-based products in 2020 and intends to accelerate cloud deployment into additional industries and geographic markets. It plans to scale use of its platform to inform business processes and to expand its offerings in advertising effectiveness, smartphone applications, construction and warehouse safety in 2022. Humanising Autonomy also intends to expand existing automotive and dashcam capabilities that can alert drivers and inform fleet management. The company will expand its diverse team across Europe, Asia and North America as it grows. Humanising Autonomy builds modular machine-learning models that predict pedestrian behaviours from RGB camera footage to help vehicles and autonomous machines read and respond to human intentions. The company trains models on diverse data sources — CCTV, dash cams and autonomous-vehicle sensors — and specifically analyzes accident footage to improve robustness across cities, camera types and conditions. Its models use only RGB data (forgoing lidar depth) and are modular so components can be tuned for different environments and processing constraints, enabling deployments from high-power Level 4/5 stacks to lower-power aftermarket retrofits. HA is working with mobility providers in Europe, the U.S. and Japan and has case studies and partnerships with Daimler Mercedes Benz and Airbus. It sees adjacent opportunities in warehouses and manufacturing where partial retraining of modules can adapt the system to worker-monitoring use cases. The company says its system outperforms humans on the task and aims to be licensed into sensing stacks rather than having manufacturers build bespoke solutions. The recent seed financing is intended to accelerate commercialization and integration into tier-1 stacks.

Participated · Series A · Jul 2021

Miles provides a universal rewards platform and mobile app that awards users ‘miles’ for travel across every mode of transportation, with higher rewards for alternative or more sustainable modes. Users can view miles earned per trip, participate in weekly and monthly activity challenges, redeem personalized rewards from a marketplace of more than 200 brands, or donate miles to charity. Reward partners include brands and services such as ButcherBox, Harry’s Razors, Home Chef, Noom, Thrive Market, and gift cards from Amazon, Starbucks, Target and Walmart. The platform also supports donations to charities including Doctors Without Borders, Feeding America and The Pride Foundation. To date, users have earned 12 billion miles, redeemed 7 million rewards and realized more than $50 million in savings. The company plans to use new funding to invest in R&D, expand its marketplace, and grow its team to accelerate growth and deliver value to partners and its user base. Miles operates a rewards app that tracks travel and physical activity and issues points redeemable with nearly 200 partner merchants. The core product incentivizes travel and greener modes of transport with multiplier bonuses (public transit 3x; biking, walking and jogging 10x) and temporary COVID-era bonuses (up to 20x for physical activity). The company has adapted its messaging during the pandemic to encourage staying home while driving redemptions with partner offers. Miles has a partnership with the Jacksonville Transportation Authority to reward public-transit riders and is already operating in North America and Japan. The startup says users have redeemed over 500,000 rewards and received more than $10 million in discounts. To date the company has raised roughly $7.4 million, and it recently secured a strategic investment from Liil Ventures to fund further expansion. Miles is a mobile app that tracks users' travel by foot, bike, car, rideshare, bus, train and plane, and awards reward miles on a sliding scale based on eco-friendliness. The app is available on iOS and gives new users 2,000 miles (enough for a $5 Starbucks, Target, or Whole Foods gift card) and features nearby and online merchant deals that can be redeemed with miles. Miles’ platform includes predictive AI to deliver hyper‑targeted offers based on location and past preferences. The team foresees selling aggregated traffic and usage data to city governments and working with municipalities to incentivize sustainable transportation; the Contra Costa Transportation Authority plans to offer rewards via the Miles platform and Seattle is evaluating it. The company raised $3 million from Porsche Digital, Scrum Ventures and others, with former TechCruncher Keith Teare assisting on the raise.

Participated · Seed · Jan 2018

Understand.ai is a Karlsruhe, Germany-based machine learning startup that provides image and video data for autonomous vehicles. The company focuses on a combined human-machine approach to increase efficiency in data labeling and reduce margins for error. Led by CEO Marc Mengler, Understand.ai supplies training and validation data to major automotive OEMs and Tier-one suppliers in Germany and the USA. It raised $2.8M in seed funding to support its growth. The company will use the funds to further develop its team and expertise and to continue expansion in the US.