Led · Series C · Dec 2020

Eta Compute builds energy-efficient endpoint AI solutions, including the ECM3532 neural sensor processor and the TENSAI® Flow software and neural network compiler. The company’s patented Continuous Voltage and Frequency Scaling (CVFS) technology underpins its platform and targets multi-year battery life and energy-harvesting applications. Eta Compute offers board-level solutions and optimized neural networks for audio- and vision-based edge AI in smart home consumer IoT and industrial IoT markets. The company said it will expand from software into complete, commercially deployable system solutions and introduce new modules and software to accelerate design wins. Financially, Eta Compute closed a $12.5 million Series C, bringing total capital raised to $31.9 million. The company is based in Westlake Village, Calif. Eta Compute develops third-generation machine intelligence for mobile and edge devices, focusing on spiking neural networks (SNNs) that use biologically realistic neuron models. The company leverages its Delay Insensitive Asynchronous Logic (DIAL™) to power machine intelligence on constrained devices. Eta Compute aims to enable brain-inspired computation techniques and carry out machine intelligence based on these biologically inspired models. It completed an $8M Series A and said it will use the funds to accelerate its machine-intelligence hardware platform and AI applications. The company was founded in 2015 by Gopal Raghavan (CEO) and Dr. Narayan Srinivasa (CTO) and is based in Westlake Village, California.

Participated · Series B · May 2018

Vesper is a Boston, MA-based advanced sensor company led by CEO Matt Crowley that develops proprietary piezoelectric MEMS technology. Its core products include MEMS microphones (notably the VM1010 with ZeroPower Listening) that bring voice activation to battery-powered consumer devices while drawing nearly zero power, as well as acoustic event-detection products. The company closed a $23M Series B round, bringing total funding to date to $40M. The financing was led by American Family Ventures with participation from Accomplice, Amazon Alexa Fund, Baidu, Bose Ventures, Hyperplane, Sands Capital, Shure, Synaptics, ZZ Capital and other undisclosed investors. Vesper intends to use the funds to scale mass production of its microphones and to support expanded research and development, hiring, international sales offices, and growth of customer support. Vesper develops the VM1010 piezoelectric MEMS microphone that harvests energy from sound waves to enable always-on voice detection with very low power draw. The VM1010 listens for human-voice frequencies and wakes a device to keyword detection within milliseconds, reducing standby battery consumption by a factor of 100. Its piezoelectric design is intrinsically water- and dust-proof, enabling rugged and portable outdoor use cases. Vesper’s tech originated in part from the University of Michigan and the company is based in Boston. Target applications include mobile devices, hearables, Internet of Things products, and connected-car systems. The company recently closed a financing round to support product development and commercialization.