Xplorer Capital is a venture capital firm investing in early stage B2B companies that are transforming traditional industries on a global scale.

Xplorer Capital

Lauder Partners, LLC is an entity investing in various realms of the technology field. Lauder invest both directly in companies as well as in funds - both venture and others. Since it primarily invests the capital of Gary Lauder and family members, we don't provide much information to the public.

Lauder Partners

Playground Global is an early-stage venture capital firm backing technical and scientific founders with deep engineering expertise, a collaborative environment, and a first-hand understanding of the intricacies of deep tech. Established in 2015 and headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, Playground’s mission is to transform ambitious ideas into impactful businesses that benefit humanity and the planet.  We invest in areas that span across next gen compute automation, energy transition and engineered biology. Playground has been an early – and frequently first investor – in companies that include PsiQuantum, Relativity Space, Ultima Genomics, MosaicML (acq. by Databricks), d-Matrix, and Strand Therapeutics.

Playground Global

JetBlue Ventures invests in and partners with early-stage startups improving the future of travel and hospitality. The company provides funding to promising startups.

JetBlue Ventures

Through our $500 million Impact Fund, they are using their own capital to make equity investments in ''double bottom line'' U.S.-based private sector companies that are applying innovative solutions to help address some of society's pressing challenges. They typically co-invest alongside other investors in the venture capital ecosystem, making equity capital commitments ranging from $250,000 to $10 million across the seed to pre-IPO stages. Investments are primarily made in companies that have demonstrated proof of concept, secured prior rounds of funding, and exhibited the potential for scale. They invest in four verticals: the future of work, climate resilience, financial inclusion, and social infrastructure. They are actively seeking opportunities to invest in businesses that are led or owned by women and minority entrepreneurs to help combat the gender and race gaps that exist in the VC-funded startup world. As part of this commitment, early-stage seed investments are primarily allocated to businesses that are led or owned by women and minorities. Additionally, as part of Citi and the Citi Foundation’s $1 billion+ Action for Racial Equity initiative, the Citi Impact Fund’s Black Entrepreneurs Investment Initiative—a $50 million capital commitment from Citi to help reduce the racial wealth gap by creating equitable access to venture capital funding for black founders—has made equity investments in tech-enabled ventures led by black founders.

Citi Impact Fund

Lacuna Technologies

Lacuna Technologies is a transportation operating system for orchestrating, governing, and powering modern mobility. Rather than multiple tools for multiple modes, Lacuna’s transportation operating system (tOS) is designed to scale across existing and future modes. Lacuna Technologies was established in 2018 by John Ellis in Palo Alto, California.

<div>Lacuna is a smart city data firm, gathering and providing data and tools to city planners and transport agencies for planning, communicating, and enforcing traffic and transport policies dynamically. The firm's platform provides users with tools for managing the curb, including tools for setting prices &amp; operating hours, automating enforcement, monitoring and modeling future demand, and dynamically adjusting the size and shape of curb zones usage. The firm's platform can also be used by transport operators, particularly logistics firms for reserving pick-up/drop-off times to reduce parking fines and improve the efficiency of delivery. The firm builds a &ldquo;digital twin&rdquo; of the city in question, which can be used for modeling mobility-related situations.</div>

Information to create a more efficient, cleaner and safer way to travel in the city of the future

Smart Mobility Information

Lacuna develops digital twins for cities including all forms of mobility such as cars, scooters, and drones. The technology is used by city planners and transportation agencies for monitoring, implementing new regulations, and running simulations. The company has built digital twins for cities including Los Angeles, Seattle, and Miami.&nbsp;

Using real-time data to create dynamic virtual representations of the real world

Digital Twin

Lacuna

Lacuna Technologies announces $16 million Series A round led by Xplorer Capital Management

<div>
 
 Lacuna is a smart city data firm, gathering and providing data and tools to city planners and transport agencies for planning, communicating, and enforcing traffic and transport policies dynamically. The firm's platform provides users with tools for managing the curb, including tools for setting prices &amp; operating hours, automating enforcement, monitoring and modeling future demand, and dynamically adjusting the size and shape of curb zones usage. The firm's platform can also be used by transport operators, particularly logistics firms for reserving pick-up/drop-off times to reduce parking fines and improve the efficiency of delivery. The firm builds a &ldquo;digital twin&rdquo; of the city in question, which can be used for modeling mobility-related situations. 
 
 
 The firm's edge is its platform is built on open-source data, which the firm claims offer lower costs, better interoperability and flexibility, and no vendor lock-in. The firm is also an advocate and member of the open mobility foundation and contributes to projects such as mobility data specifications to provide open-source resources to developers. 
 
 
 In addition, Ellis &amp; Associates, the firm&rsquo;s fully owned consultancy arm, provides consultancy services for mobility planning and policy setting. 
 
 
 As of July 2021, the firm has helped cities including Los Angeles, Seattle, and Miami Dade County. 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In August 2022, the firm&rsquo;s consultancy arm Ellis &amp; Associates joined aeronautical and space technology developer 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/12692">
 NASA&rsquo;s advanced air mobility national campaign
 </a>
 in the development of air mobility solutions, allowing Lacuna to share its expertise and knowledge in deploying and managing smart mobility solutions.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 Lacuna raised USD 16 million in series A funding in July 2021 led by Xplorer capital management. The firm plans to use the funding to grow its team in order to expand to new markets and add new product features including tools for implementing and enforcing curbside parking rules and placing caps on drone activity on a given street per day.
 
</div>

<div>
 
 Replica is an urban planning and simulation tool that helps city planners and transport operators assess current and future transport requirements. The firm gathers data including mobility metrics covering a variety of modes of transport, demographics, land use, and economic metrics from several sources including de-identified data gathered from smartphones of commuters. 
 
 
 Replica&rsquo;s unique offering is a city simulation model that applies proprietary synthetic population and behavior models powered by AI and machine learning to create large-scale simulations or &ldquo;digital twins&rdquo; of the transportation and economic patterns of a city. In 2021, the firm claimed to have grown its activity-based travel demand simulator to cover the entire US, creating the first nationwide travel model of its kind.
 
 
 Replica started off (in 2018) as a project of Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Alphabet, to experiment with smart city projects. In September 2019, the project was spun-off from its parent as a standalone company, while Sidewalk Labs remained an investor in the firm. 
 
 
 In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the firm created a public dashboard and trend analysis tool providing weekly data on mobility, consumer spending, and public health to monitor the progression of the pandemic and the economic recovery. 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 As of February 2022, the firm partnered with public agencies and private firms in the US, including the Chicago Transit Authority, Illinois Department of Transportation, Caltrans, and Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization. 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 
 In April 2021, Replica raised USD 41 million in Series B funding led by Founders Fund. Replica planned to use this to expand its service offerings to include forecasting and scenario modeling tools.
 
</div>

Replica

<div>
 
 Cowlines is a transport planning app that provides information covering multiple modes of travel including bus, subway, tram, bikeshare, and ferries. The app is free for commuters on the Apple App Store and is also available to transport operators as a white label product. 
 
 
 The app was developed by Greenlines Technology, a developer of human-based decarbonization solutions, built on its proprietary patent-pending mobility carbon engine (MCE). The firm claimed that since 2019, it had generated revenue from verified carbon offsets produced by commuters, using its transport apps when they choose low-carbon transport modes such as public transit, micromobility, and ride-hailing services. 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 As of February 2022, the app covers 62 cities in the US and Canada. The firm also licenses its MCE where transport operators can incorporate it into their own transport apps. A case in point is, Loopshare, a micromobility ride-sharing firm that entered a licensing agreement with Greenlines Technology in January 2020.
 
</div>

Cowlines

Founded in Ukraine before subsequently moving its operations to Spain, Discoperi provides AI-powered smart vision technologies for improving road safety. It developed “system eye,” a portable smart camera equipped with vision technology that gathers and analyzes data in real-time, providing an in-vehicle road safety alert system. Its vision technology system can also be integrated into third-party in-vehicle internet of things (IoT) devices. The system is built on blockchain technology, which gathers and stores data in a privacy-preserving manner. Discoperi also claimed it is working to bring its system eye service to smartphones without the need for any additional hardware. The firm’s solutions are targeted at drivers, insurance companies, transport agencies, driving schools, and city municipalities.In 2020, the firm also launched “City AI,” a B2B solution for public agencies, such as police, city planners, and road maintenance workers, for mobility data gathering, analyzing, predicting, and identifying issues to improve road safety. Its vision technology can be integrated into any existing roadside cameras and it claims its system has a 96%+ accuracy in identifying 3,000+ vehicle models.Key customers and partnershipsThe firm reported in 2020 that it generated its first revenue by converting two pilot projects in Ukraine into paying customers. In 2021, it planned to enter one additional market while growing its presence in the Ukraine market.Funding and financialsBoth its products were at the pilot stage and in November 2018, it received a grant of USD 71,400 from the European Commission to develop its System EYE platform. Since then, the firm raised an undisclosed amount in March 2019 in a pre-seed funding round.In May 2022, the firm was selected to receive support from Google as part of its USD 5 million Ukraine support fund. Discoperi will be amongst the first 17 startups to receive equity free cash contributions, Google Cloud credits and individual mentorship as part of this initiative.

Discoperi

<div>
 
 Nauto provides an AI-powered driver and fleet safety platform. The platform applies computer vision and proprietary algorithms to its AI-enabled dual-facing dash camera. This monitors driver behavior and vehicle surroundings to predict high-risk events and send real-time in-vehicle alerts (IVA) to prevent pedestrian collisions, speeding and intersection violations, and distracted driving. In November 2019, the firm introduced self-coaching tools for drivers to improve distracted driving and manager-led coaching modules for commercial fleet managers. The firm claimed its tools had helped reduce distraction events by more than 35% on average. 
 
 The firm claimed to be the only AI-enabled platform that impacted driver behavior in real-time, which it claimed has led to the avoidance of 70,000+ collisions, resulting in a ~USD 300 million savings. 
 
 
 In November 2021, Nauto introduced a driver drowsiness detector system that monitors real-time multiple drowsiness indicators such as yawning, blink rate, drooping shoulders, etc. which will trigger in-vehicle alert (IVA) systems when a certain threshold is reached. 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 As of February 2022, Nauto&rsquo;s platform was used by 800+ brands including Allegiant, Flexibus, Sprint, Edge, Phillips. 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19521">
 In June 2023,
 </a>
 Nauto secured a strategic investment from Stellantis Ventures, the venture capital arm of automaker Stellantis, to extend its safety benefits to more light commercial vehicles and, eventually, to consumer vehicles. The firm has also attracted investor interest from automakers like General Motor Ventures, Toyota AI Ventures, and BMW iVentures. It is believed that the firm's data can be leveraged for the development of self-driving cars in the future.
 
</div>

Nauto

ParkNav is a web-based parking discovery platform that provides drivers with up-to-date on-street and off-street parking availability and parking restriction information.The firm’s edge is in the range of data sources it uses, including vehicle sensors, cell phone towers, satellite imagery, and proprietary sources, coupled with AI and big data analytics. According to the firm, it is recognized as a leader in the industry for its data accuracy, claiming an 80% precision rate for every city in its coverage.Key customers and partnershipsAs of February 2022, the platform covers 1,000+ cities across Europe and North America.

ParkNav

Startups that offer mobile apps that provide live information for route planning via multiple modes of transport

Startups offering management platforms to monitor, analyze, and automate traffic control

Startups offering mobile apps for drivers to locate, book, and pay for parking

Startups offering management platforms that provide information and analytics to optimize route planning and usage for mass transport

Startups offering mobile and in-vehicle apps that provide real-time alerts on road hazards and traffic conditions

Startups offering platforms to monitor, manage and enforce parking services

SMI tools promote sustainability and aim to reduce carbon emissions globally

Solutions like smart parking and traffic management use IOTs in vehicles and roadside hardware

Connecting smart mobility systems through peer-to-peer, vehicle-to-vehicle, and vehicle-to-infrastructure connectivity to promote sustainable transportation

5G and Edge computing have enabled the emergence of traffic management solutions

Transport planning and smart parking apps provide transparency on transport options and parking spots

Lacuna develops digital twins for cities including all forms of mobility such as cars, scooters, and drones. The technology is used by city planners and transportation agencies for monitoring, implementing new regulations, and running simulations. The company has built digital twins for cities including Los Angeles, Seattle, and Miami.&nbsp;The company has two main product offerings: 1) City conductor with tools for cities to manage policy deployment and 2) Airport conductor with tools to manage airport operations efficiently.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsThe company’s notable partners include Ford, AWS, NASA, and World Economic Forum. Funding and financialsThe company raised USD 16 million in July 2021 in a Series A funding round led by Xplorer Capital Management. The funds will be used to expand its product offerings and markets.

Norway-based Cognite is a provider of digital twin modeling software for an entire operation through complex industrial data. With machine learning and physics simulators, companies are able to use these for predictive maintenance, production optimization, and better decision-making.&nbsp;Its main solution Cognite Data Fusion offers an open industrial digital twin by integrating IT, operational, and engineering data from sources such as ERPs, MES, and IoT platforms. The data is cleaned and contextualized into a single location and turned into insights for actionable advice, which then is used to build and automate workflows. The company claimed to be the first company to <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17445">achieve DNV-RP-A204 compliance </a>for its core product, Cognite Data Fusion.&nbsp;In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16217">February 2023</a>, the company advanced with new data-modeling capabilities to accelerate (up to 10–25x) deployments of industrial digital solutions and reduce cost and complexity for users. In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/25399">January 2024</a>, the company launched the beta version of a GenAI remote operations control room at the Celanese facility to deliver real-time operational transparency.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsThe company provides its solution mainly to the oil and gas, power and utilities, and manufacturing sectors. Its key customers include Siemens and Rockwell Automation.&nbsp;The company had partnered with Microsoft in January 2024 to integrate Cognite Data Fusion with Microsoft Fabric and deliver an AI-powered industrial data operations solution. In June 2022, Cognite formed a joint venture, CNTXT, with Saudi Aramco to provide its digitization services in the Middle East region for the private and public sectors. Also, in October 2022, the company partnered with industrial automation company Rockwell Automation to develop an industrial data hub for the manufacturing sector by combining Rockwell’s software, FactoryTalk, and Cognite Data Fusion.Furthermore, in September 2022, the company partnered with Schlumberger to integrate Cognite Data Fusion to Schlumberger’s Enterprise Data Solution to contextualize data in an interoperable platform.&nbsp;Funding and financialsThe company raised USD 150 million in May 2021 in an equity funding round from TCV, which brought the valuation of the company to USD 1.6 billion. The funds were allocated toward expanding its platform to global industries.&nbsp;Furthermore, in January 2022, petroleum and gas company Saudi Aramco purchased 100% of Aker BP's shares in Cognite to own a majority stake of 7.4% at a value of USD 183 million.

Cognite

Nexar is a developer of smart dash cams that gathers real-time street footage to create a digital twin of the physical world and provide data to users for decision-making. As of June 2024, the company had covered over 1.5 billion miles of imagery and holds 4T images in a neural library.&nbsp;Using AI and computer vision, captured images and videos from cars are localized on a map to detect any changes in roads to provide actionable changed data across the platform CityStream and Nexar network. The platform provides features such as detecting changes on the road (such as road blockages, potholes, and construction), driver behavioral maps, autonomous vehicles systems, and compute and connectivity optimization.&nbsp;In August 2022, the company acquired Portugal-based Veniam to combine its data with Veniam’s communications technology and provide real-time mapping for mobility applications.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsThe company operates a B2B business model providing its services to enterprises and institutions in the logistics, road construction, and insurance industries. Its key customers include the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, which partnered with Nexar in May 2021 to improve road management in Las Vegas. Also, in August 2021, the company partnered with Black Car Fund to provide cameras for Black car operators (rideshare drivers) in New York to protect Black Car Fund members in the case of accident or assault.&nbsp;It also partnered with AWS to deploy images, videos, and AI detections using AWS.&nbsp;Funding and financialsThe company raised USD 53 million in November 2021 in a Series D funding round led by Qumra Capital. The funds were used to scale its digital twin service using dash cam footage for automotive OEMs and cities.

Nexar

Seeq is a provider of data analytics enabling insights, predictions, and collaboration for better production and business outcomes.The company’s product portfolio includes software for data analytics including 1) Seeq Workbench for advanced analytics, 2) Seeq Organizer for publishing reports and dashboards, 3) Seeq Data Lab for accessing Python libraries, and 4) Seeq Cortex for IT governance, data connectivity, and calculation features. Furthermore, the company provides deployment via cloud, SaaS solutions, and on premise depending on the customer’s system.Key customers and partnershipsThe company provides its services in more than 40 countries focusing on process manufacturing industries, including oil and gas, pharmaceutical, chemical, energy, mining, and food and beverage. In June 2024, Seeq partnered with Equinor, an international energy company, to leverage Seeq's platform across Equinor's global assets.Seeq’s software is built on long-term vendor partnerships such as SIsoft, Honeywell (since 2017), and Siemens (since 2017). Seeq has also partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure to develop features specific to their offerings, recognizing Seeq's expertise in providing cloud solutions for the manufacturing and industrial sector. Other partners include Schneider Electric and Inductive Automation.

Seeq

Q Bio provides a predictive assessment platform to analyze existential risk in an individual’s health. The company claims its platform, Gemini Digital Twin, is the fastest and safest scanner, and taking 15 minutes to scan the entire body.The company provides the Q Exam, which gathers millions of data points from the individual’s body, such as blood, saliva, and vitals, and sends results via a web-based Q Dashboard to the individual’s physicians. Data is facilitated via the Gemini platform that captures whole body patient vitals in a non-invasive manner.&nbsp;&nbsp;The company operates a B2B2C business model offering services via employers and to individuals. It charges membership plans for one year at USD 3,495 for one exam and USD 6,495 for two exams.&nbsp;Q Bio's is developing the Mark I scanner which uses proprietary tensor field mapping technology to offer full-body scans with 3,000 anatomical measurements in just 10 minutes, creating digital twins and large biological models for health insights. In <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/31878">July 2024</a>, Q Bio secured USD 27 million in strategic funding to propel the Mark I scanner toward market launch.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsIn May 2021, the company partnered with Amazon Web Services to provide Q Bio’s services on its cloud platform.

Q Bio

Israel-based Locusview has developed a digital construction management platform to allow companies to manage projects from start to end. The platform is supported by technological capabilities in physical assets, such as plastic and steel pipes, to enable a digital thread (information of an asset such as model or size) and for supply chain and asset traceability.&nbsp;The platform provides features to manage construction projects in and off the field including GPS and sensor-based data collection, fieldwork validations, cloud-based deployment and scaling, real-time progress tracking, online approvals, and built-in reports. Furthermore, companies can lease the complete solution or get a consultation for a customized solution.The company operates a B2B business model, providing its services mainly to the energy, utilities, and telecom industries.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsThe company’s customer base includes more than 30 leading energy utilities and telecom companies. The company has a market presence in India, the US, Australia, Mexico, the UK, and Israel.&nbsp;The company had partnered with Esri to offer a complete end-to-end solution for Esri-based utilities. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Funding and financialsThe company raised USD 64 million in April 2021 in a Series A funding round led by Israel Growth Partners. The funds were used to expand the platform capabilities and for market expansion.

Locusview

Companies that facilitate the creation of digital twins to monitor and maintain assets, including buildings and network infrastructure.

Platforms that facilitate digital twin modeling by either collectively or individually offering any combination of data capture and analytics solutions.

Companies that offer digital twins to gain insights for use in commercial planning, logistics and distribution, and other supply chain processes.

Companies that offer digital twins to assess risks and recommend solutions in areas such as disaster management, DNA testing, clinical trials (to simulate effects of treatments), etc.

Companies that offer digital twins to design and build components contributing to smart cities, roads, airports, public transportation systems, etc.

Startups can create digital twins of cities; enables modeling/simulation to improve efficiency/quality of life

Startups can use digital twins to automate and proactively monitor industrial production lines and facilities

Digital twins are the primary enabling technology for the digital twin industry

Lacuna

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