Initialized Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on the seed. Initialized has 6 investing partners and over $3.2B under management over five core funds since its founding in 2012. The firm's startups have created in aggregate over $200B in market value so far.

Initialized Capital

Lux Capital manages over $5 billion in assets focused on founding, seed, early-stage, and growth investments at the intersection of technology and the sciences. Lux takes an active role in helping entrepreneurs build successful businesses in high-growth sectors. Its investment team has built over 20 companies from scratch. Lux's investment strategy ensures portfolio companies are better connected, have a deeper insight, and command industry leadership faster than their competitors.

Lux Capital

Correlation Ventures is a new breed of venture capital firm, leveraging world-class analytics to offer entrepreneurs and other venture capitalists a dramatically better option when they are seeking additional capital to complete a financing round.

Correlation Ventures

Lorimer Ventures is an operator led investment firm backing bold entrepreneurs building exceptional B2B startups.

Lorimer Ventures

Team Builder Ventures is a venture capital fund that helps founders build teams. It aims to make investments in startups focused on developments in enterprise software and consumer internet. offer team building as a value-add for our investments.  The fund invests in the most compelling early-stage enterprise software and consumer Internet start-ups led by the top venture capital funds.   It was founded by Steven Lurie in 2013 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Team Builder Ventures

One Planet Group is a closely held private equity firm that owns a suite of online technology and media businesses while also investing in early-stage companies. Owned and operated businesses span a variety of industries including ad tech, publishing, and media. One Planet’s mission is to support strong business ideas while building an ethos that helps improve society and give back to communities.  Infused with foundational values which promote diversity and inclusion, unity, service to humanity, and excellence in all things, One Planet Group strives to foster an environment that promotes equality, love, and empowerment.  The company’s investment portfolio includes a diverse group of innovative tech-enabled products and solutions. Investing primarily in high-growth early-stage entities, the focus is on companies that aspire to the concept of ‘Innovation + Intention.’ Specific areas of focus include the future of mobility, education technology, health technology, and environmental solutions.  Core operating businesses for One Planet Group include Buyerlink, a leading online marketplace for performance-based marketing; AutoWeb Inc., an automotive matchmaking platform connecting in-market car shoppers to their preferred vehicle transactions; California.com, a curated guide to living in California; and Contractors.com, a site connecting homeowners and service providers. One Planet Group also operates BahaiTeachings.com, a non-profit platform that shares personal perspectives to promote the oneness of humanity. One Planet Group was founded by tech entrepreneur Payam Zamani in 2015. With offices and employees in over ten countries, its global headquarters is located in Walnut Creek, California.

One Planet Group

Blackhorn Ventures is an early-stage venture firm that invests in companies using cutting edge engineering to improve resource productivity. The firm was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.

Blackhorn Ventures

For US-based startups, identifying and accessing strategic partners in Asia can sometimes seem like a daunting challenge. With TransLink Capital’s support, guidance, and relationships with the most significant companies in Asia, our portfolio companies can develop the necessary long-term partnerships to transform their businesses and expand in Asia and beyond.

Translink Capital

FJ Labs is a stage-agnostic investment firm that focuses on marketplaces and consumer-facing startups. Their investments are seed and series A. The investment range of the company is $50,000 to $5,000,000. It invests in Alibaba Group, Beepi, BrightRoll, Betterment, Adore Me, and Earnest.

FJ Labs

NEC Corporation of America (NEC) is a leading technology integrator providing solutions that improve the way people work and communicate. NEC delivers integrated Solutions for Society that are aligned with our customers' priorities to create new value for people, businesses and society, with a special focus on safety, security and efficiency. They deliver one of the industry's strongest and most innovative portfolios of communications, analytics, security, biometrics and technology solutions that unleash customers’ productivity potential. Through these solutions, NEC combines its best-in-class solutions and technology, and leverages a robust partner ecosystem to solve today's most complex business problems.

NEC Corporation of America

Alumni Ventures Group provides high-quality, diversified venture portfolios to individual investors who previously haven't had access to VC. It helps accredited alums from top entrepreneurial schools invest together in the ventures of fellow alums. The firm backs companies with an alumni connection and an institutional lead investor with expertise in the space. AVG also offers focused funds that allow any accredited investor access to a venture portfolio, diversified by type, sector, stage, and geography. Beth Obermiller, Michael Madden, and Mike Collins co-founded the firm in Manchester, New Hampshire in 2013.

Alumni Ventures

Evolution-VC is involved in investments and strategic partnerships to create a global platform that unites leaders, investors & corporates.

Evolution Ventures

Mitsubishi Hc Capital America is to deliver social, environmental, and economic value for their customers and communities and supportive work environments. Their services include lending, transportation, floorplan financing, vendor finance, truck finance, funding, and tech finance.

Mitsubishi Hc Capital America

Formic Technologies

At Formic, we want to increase the collective output of humanity by making automation deployments trivial and easy. Every factory should have access to unlimited 'labor' through robotics and automation rentals. We are building technology, financing, operations and services to make this vision possible. Formic is a fast-growing venture-backed startup focused on unlocking robotic automation in labor-starved industries such as food and beverage, advanced manufacturing, consumer packaged goods and other industrial settings. We combine financial innovation with a firm understanding of what robotics are capable of, to enable manufacturing customers to scale up their manufacturing capacity quickly and with minimal risk.

Formic offers a robotics-as-a-service platform that provides a range of robotics software solutions across design, installation, programming, monitoring, and maintenance. Its flagship product is the “Formic Core” operating system that features a range of automation modules, including "Formic Stack," which focuses on the creation of automated palletizing systems, and "Formic Pack," for automated packaging.&nbsp;

Using data and automation to achieve 24/7 production.

Smart Factory

Formic

Formic Technologies Raises $26.5 Million Series A Led By Lux Capital

Formic offers a robotics-as-a-service platform that provides a range of robotics software solutions across design, installation, programming, monitoring, and maintenance. Its flagship product is the “Formic Core” operating system that features a range of automation modules, including "Formic Stack," which focuses on the creation of automated palletizing systems, and "Formic Pack," for automated packaging.&nbsp;Additionally, the platform offers a performance dashboard and specification tools as well as AI-powered motion planning capabilities that allow users to make process updates without requiring advanced technical proficiency.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsThe company caters to the manufacturing, food processing, and logistics industries and applications such as palletizing, packaging, and material handling. Formic’s notable customers include Universal Robots, FANUC, KUKA, Honeywell, CAT, John Deere, Georgia Nut, the US Navy, and ABB.&nbsp;In January 2024, Formic announced a strategic partnership with Jacobi Robotics, an AI-driven motion planning software company, to integrate the latter’s technology into Formic's robotic solutions.

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 Righthand Robotics provides autonomous robotic picking solutions called RightPick. It utilizes a smart gripper, machine learning, and computer vision to imitate human hand-eye coordination. It develops software and hardware for predictable order fulfillment at scale with flexibility. The company&rsquo;s solutions can be utilized in industries such as apparel, grocery, pharmaceuticals, and electronics. It is based in Massachusetts and has an office in Tokyo, Japan. The company is focused on expanding its European operations, having opened an office in Frankfurt, Germany, in March 2020.
 
 
 In 2019, the company launched the second generation of its piece-picking robotic solution, &ldquo;RightPick2,&rdquo; which includes enhancements to hardware and software. The upgrades included a fifth-generation industrial gripper with the capacity to lift up to 4.4 lbs, new depth-sensing cameras from Intel, and an improved arm from Universal Robots. In 2021, the company launched &ldquo;RightPick 3,&rdquo; with improved picking speeds, capacity to handle a broader item range, and with capabilities for dense packing and damage-free item handling. 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/25875">
 In January 2024,
 </a>
 it launched &ldquo;RightPick 4&rdquo; with enhanced AI, sensor suite, and new hardware that allow the system to extend its item-picking range, handle items more efficiently, and enhance system autonomy.
 
 
 In February 2022, the company raised USD 66 million in a Series C round bringing its total funding to USD 100.3 million. The funds were expected to be used to accelerate product and business development, scale global presence by expanding the partner network, expand offices, and acquiring new talent to support overall growth plans. Subsequently, in March 2022, the company announced the launch of its 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9203?industryIds=6">
 partner integrator program,
 </a>
 to complement its robotic piece-picking solutions with warehouse technologies and solution providers to cater to the broad ecommerce order fulfillment market. In May 2022, AutoStore integrator in South Korea Asetec also joined the program.
 
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RightHand Robotics

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 SparkCognition is an AI analytics startup offering four deep learning product solutions: Darwin (automated model-building software), DeepArmor (AI-powered cybersecurity), DeepNLP (NLP solution), and SparkPredict (analytics solution utilizing sensor data). These products deliver actionable insights, predict machine issues via historical maintenance data, and provide security from cyber threats. These products can be deployed across multiple industries, such as manufacturing, defense, utilities, oil and gas, and aviation. 
 
 
 SparkCognition&rsquo;s clientele comprises large companies such as Boeing, Hitachi, and British Petroleum. It has also built partnerships with Google for cloud platform services, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise to offer AI predictive maintenance on HPE Edgeline Converged Edge Systems, and OSIsoft to integrate SparkCognition&rsquo;s machine learning technology with OSIsoft&rsquo;s PI system to improve data and process data analytics.
 
 
 The company&rsquo;s most recent funding round was Series D funding worth USD 123 million in January 2022 from March Capital, Doha Venture Capital, B. Riley Venture Capital, AEI Horizon X, Temasek, and several others. The funds were intended to be used to invest in R&amp;D, accelerate sales and marketing, facilitate organic and inorganic growth, and also for the working capital requirements of the company. In March 2022, the company acquired Indian visual AI startup 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9370?industryIds=6">
 Integration Wizards
 </a>
 to expand its intellectual property (IP) portfolio to improve vision capabilities. The company has reported a 2x increase in revenue YoY in 2021.
 
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SparkCognition

Kinta AI provides an automated production planning platform for manufacturing that uses advanced AI algorithms and simulation techniques. Using existing operational data, a SaaS solution is deployed that can be integrated with existing management execution systems (MES), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and Industry 4.0 tools in the factory. The software looks to have cross-functional communication across the factory to eliminate any bottlenecks that delay resolving breakdowns. Kinta AI has partnered with Flex (an electronics manufacturer) and BASF (a chemical company).Kinta AI’s most recent financing was a Series A funding round worth USD 5.5 million in April 2021 led by Lachy Groom’s LGF and Shine Capital. The funds will be utilized to scale operations in existing general industrial client factories and implement the Kinta AI platform in new client factories.

Kinta AI

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 Sight Machine provides a digital manufacturing platform enabled by AI. It creates a digital twin of both assets and processes to help manufacturers improve processes, quality, and productivity. It can also gather data from machines of various manufacturers supplying actionable insights for predictive maintenance, quality improvement, capacity utilization, among other benefits. In October 2022, the company released 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13696?industryIds=6">
 Sight Machine Blueprint
 </a>
 to offer manufacturers with advanced data analytics solutions.
 
 
 Sight Machine has established partnerships with large global companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) for their cloud platforms and Fujitsu (system integrator) to help with wide deployments. Sight Machine, which caters to at least 15 verticals, such as food and beverage, electronics, and automotive, is on the move to expand into more verticals. It has global clients of Fortune 500-caliber, including Nissan, Heineken, Westrock Co., and Asian Paints. Sight Machine&rsquo;s most recent funding round was Series C funding worth USD 29.4 million in April 2019, led by LS Group. The funds were to be used to expedite the company&rsquo;s growth.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In December 2023, 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/25200">
 Sight Machine received a low double-digit million euro investmen
 </a>
 t from TeamViewer to improve industrial digitalization and enhance manufacturing efficiency.
 
 
 
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Sight Machine

Overview uses smart cameras and AI to monitor manufacturing equipment and robots and identify defects in real time before significant damage or downtime is incurred. The technology has a repository of machine data so that there is a traceable visual record of all units. With AI, the cause of production issues and quality concerns can be identified either on-site or remotely. The company claims over time, the deep learning computer vision algorithms allow for any sudden substantial increases in production and improved yields. Funding and financialsIn February 2022, the company raised USD 10 million in series A funding to be used to expand operations and business reach.

Overview

Companies that provide robotic fleet management software, robotic automation software, and inspection software.

Companies that provide an industrial IoT platform across factories as the primary offering.

Companies that provide cobots, sorting/ picking robotics, modular production robotics, and microfactories.

Companies that focus on data analytics for operations streamlining and process optimization, and may offer predictive maintenance.

Companies that provide autonomous mobile robots (AMR) or self-driving vehicles (SDV) used in manufacturing/ factory operations.

Companies that monitor the manufacturing equipment and assembly lines.

Companies that provide predictive maintenance as a primary offering. 

Creates digital twins of assets and processes to help manufacturers improve processes, quality, and productivity

Connected devices, sensors, IoT, and analytics are used to optimize factory operations

Uses advanced robotics, AMRs, and related software to improve the efficiency of factory operations

Uses connected devices and sensors to gather data—IIoT, predictive analysis, and equipment inspection

Uses AI/ML to analyze data for predictive maintenance and AI-based vision systems for line inspections

5G standard allows for faster reaction times and supports high connection densities

Uses edge computing for data processing at the edge

Some companies in the predictive maintenance space uses generative AI to generate possible alternative scenarios

<div>
 
 Formic, a robots-as-a-service (RaaS) platform, has obtained USD 27.4 million in a Series A funding round. This round saw contributions from Blackhorn Ventures, Mitsubishi HC Capital America, NEC, Translink Capital, Alumni Ventures, FJ Labs, Lux Capital, Initialized Capital, and Lorimer Ventures. This has now brought the total funding for the company to over USD 59 million.
 The company is set to use these funds to grow its range of standardized equipment, extend its support network across the US, and enhance its equipment-neutral robotic automation software.
 Formic's RaaS platform offers a host of robotics services including design, installation, programming, monitoring, and maintenance. The company's signature services are the "Formic Stack," for the development of automated palletizing systems, and "Formic Pack" for automated packaging. It also offers a range of software tools aimed at robotic programming, motion planning, fleet management, monitoring, and specification identification.
 
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Formic

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