Comet Labs is an early-stage intelligent machines venture capital fund based in San Francisco. We help startups scale, guide innovation, and generate discussion in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence. We're a venture fund and incubator founded in 2015. We invest in early stage artificial intelligence (AI) and deep technology companies transforming the world’s biggest industries. Our thesis is that AI and Robotics will revolutionize productivity in every vertical and unlock human potential. AI and machine learning technology have matured dramatically in just the past few years. The line of what is possible has been pushed back. However, it has become apparent that introducing AI to traditional industries requires a new and more collaborative approach. We started as a fund focused on investing in AI startups, but quickly understood that AI startups have little trouble raising money. Instead, they have a whole assortment of other common needs and challenges with building their businesses. That’s why we didn’t stop at the fund. We created the Labs programs, each providing an environment in which to build and grow companies. We partner with established industry brands to give startups access to vital resources and knowledge that otherwise would be out of reach. Together, we set up programs to help startups and partners discover new insights about how AI and robotics can transform industries like healthcare, agriculture, construction, transportation, and more. We’re always on the lookout for new thoughts and ideas about how AI will impact our society in the not-so-distant future. We’d love to hear yours.

Comet Labs

Cherry Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm led by a team of entrepreneurs with experience building fast-scaling companies such as Zalando and Spotify. The firm backs Europe's boldest founders, usually as their first institutional investor, and supports them in everything from their go-to-market strategy and the scaling of their businesses. Cherry Ventures has previously invested in the seed stage of over 50 companies across Europe, including FlixBus, Auto1 Group, Infarm, Rows, Forto, and TourRadar. Cherry Ventures is based in Berlin and invests across Europe with operations in London, Paris, and Stockholm.

Cherry Ventures

''BV is an independent venture fund established by Baidu in 2017. BV's investors include Baidu as well as other leading financial institutions and businesses. BV currently manages roughly $500M USD across 3 funds and has offices in Beijing and San Francisco. Its mission is to support entrepreneurs and companies who are spearheading the new age of artificial intelligence. These companies are changing the way we work and live—and ultimately how we interact.''

Baidu Ventures

Signals Venture Capital partners with founders who are in the early stages of building global enterprise software and tech companies.

Signals Venture Capital

Atomico is an international investment firm that focuses on helping disruptive technology companies scale globally. It partners with technology founders at the Seed stage and beyond with a particular focus on Europe, leveraging deep operational experience to supercharge their growth. The company's team of founders, investors, and operational leaders have been responsible for global expansion, hiring, and marketing at companies from Skype, Google, and Twitter to Wise and Snowflake. It specializes in seed, startup, Series A, early venture, mid venture, late venture, emerging growth, and growth capital investments.   Atomico was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in London, England, with offices in Paris, Berlin, and Stockholm

Atomico

Plug and Play is a seed and early-stage investor focused on great teams leading emerging growth companies.  Plug and Play runs 12 industry-specific accelerator programs twice a year, that acts as a platform for major corporations and high quality startups to connect and collaborate.  Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Plug and Play participates in Seed, Angel and Series A funding where they often co-invest with their strategic partners. Through years of experience and as part of their network, Plug and Play has put together a world-class network of serial entrepreneurs, strategic investors, and industry leaders who actively assist the firm with its successful and growing investment portfolio.  SEED ROUND. Plug and Play participates in seed round investing through a program called Startup Camp. Startup Camp is a 10-week program based in Silicon Valley for top-notch entrepreneurs to work intensively on building out their business model. Select startups will refine their business models and prototypes with help from a combination of structured workshops, speaker series and mentorship sessions, as well as active coaching from their investment team. At the culmination of Startup Camp, founders will have crystalized their business plans and pitched their company to the venture capital community at EXPO Demo Day.''  ANGEL ROUND Plug and Play makes angel round investments throughout the year, sourced from their monthly Plug and Play Angels (PAPA) sessions. They are partnered with local angel investors in Silicon Valley who participate in PAPA to find the most promising startups and best new technologies.  SERIES A. Series A typical Series A round is in the range of $2 million to $10 million, and is intended to provide operating capital for the company for six months to two years. This round capitalizes the company as it develops its products, performs initial marketing and branding, acquires talent, and conducts other early-stage business operations. It is in this stage that Plug and Play will co-invest with over 180 venture capital partners.  Plug and Play has helped grow market leaders such as PayPal, Danger, Google, DropBox, LendingClub, Zoosk, SoundHound, CreditSesame, Skytree, and has over 400 more early-stage startups in its portfolio.

Plug and Play

DI Technology (DIT) invests in early growth B2B technology companies aross Europe and selectively the US. We have unparalleled access to senior executives, board members and company owners which are deeply connected in the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the D/A/CH region and beyond. We actively leverage these networks to the benefit of our portfolio companies. DI Technology is part of Deutsche Invest, an entrepreneurial alternative asset management platform with over EUR 4.0 bn in assets under management. The platform allows us to facilitate larger growth rounds beyond our fund investments to support our portfolio companies all the way through.

DI Technology

Automation Hero

Automation Hero’s award-winning intelligent document processing platform lets you get up and running within minutes, provides value within hours, and is future-proof for years to come. Connect with any IT infrastructure, click together no-code workflows with the industry’s most accurate AI, seamlessly integrate your workforce into the process, and get real-time insights.  Our platform is trusted by Fortune 100 enterprises, ambitious mid-market companies, and the fastest-growing startups alike.

<div>Automation Hero (formerly known as SalesHero) offers a no-code document processing platform that enables users to extract data from documents and build automation via a point-and-click interface. The platform leverages an optical character recognition (OCR) engine, as well as GPT-based large language models to extract data from a range of document types and user interfaces, such as PDFs, images, invoices, handwritten documents, contracts, and forms.&nbsp;</div>

Automation to improve business efficiency

Workflow Automation Platforms

Alan Pelz-Sharpe on LinkedIn: Automation Hero Closes Its Doors | Deep Analysis

<div>
 
 Automation Hero (formerly known as SalesHero) offers a no-code document processing platform that enables users to extract data from documents and build automation via a point-and-click interface. The platform leverages an optical character recognition (OCR) engine, as well as GPT-based large language models to extract data from a range of document types and user interfaces, such as PDFs, images, invoices, handwritten documents, contracts, and forms.&nbsp;
 
 
 Users can classify, summarize, and transform this data according to their requirements and leverage the data to build automated workflows with built-in orchestration. These automations can then be deployed on-premises or in the cloud, as either attended automation that can be delivered via notifications or unattended automation that can run autonomously.&nbsp;
 
 
 Moreover, the platform enables users to connect to over 35 internal and external data sources via pre-built connectors and convert their historical process data into an AI model to identify automatable processes and predict outcomes.&nbsp;
 
 
 Automation Hero claims that its OCR engine outperformed handwriting OCR alternatives ABBYY and Google Vision by approximately 280% and 40%, respectively.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In August 2022, the company entered a strategic partnership with TIBCO, an enterprise data platform, to offer its document processing capabilities as an integration on the TIBCO Cloud Integration marketplace. The company went on to launch its platform on the AWS Marketplace in June 2023.&nbsp;
 
 
 As of October 2023, the company served a number of large enterprise customers across the insurance, finance, and manufacturing industries. These include Allianz, Wurth, R&amp;Q, Element 22, and Apleona.
 
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Headquartered in Berlin, Levity provides a no-code development platform (NDP) for building AI models to automate repetitive tasks. The platform is designed for managing customer service, marketing, and operations workflows, which deal with unstructured data such as images, text, and PDFs such as sales quote automation, direct order entry, and customer track and trace. Users can use simple templates to automate workflows and leverage the platform’s modular AI components (called AI blocks) that combine NLP and computer vision to parse unstructured data types.Levity offers 4 “AI blocks,” which enable users to create deep learning models based on their data to extract, classify, summarize, and generate text. Although the models come pre-trained out of the box, Levity allows users to fine-tune each model based on their requirements.Key customers and partnershipsAs of November 2023, Levity has automated workflows at companies such as HP, Mr. Beast, Reformation, Hear.com, BerlinCusine, and Gelato.It provides integrations with business applications such as Gmail, Outlook, and Zendesk.Funding and financialsIn October 2022, Levity <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13740">raised USD 8.3 million </a>in seed funding, co-led by Balderton Capital and Chalfen Ventures to expand its employee base and invest in product development.

Levity

<div>
 
 Danish company Leapwork offers a no code workflow automation platform that uses robotic process automation to design, manage, and scale workflows. The company&rsquo;s design &lsquo;language&rsquo; uses flowcharts to graphically represent steps in a workflow and allows users to record processes, validate steps, and input data where needed. The platform also allows users to build web apps, desktop apps, and mobile web and virtual desktop solutions to automate workflows. Moreover, Leapwork&rsquo;s automation solutions can be integrated with a range of third party technologies including SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, and ServiceNow, among others. 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company offers its services to a range of industries including financial institutions, logistics, healthcare, and retail, among others. As of August 2021, around 40% of its customers were part of the banking, insurance, and finance sector, and included companies such as PayPal, Mercedes Benz, BNP Paribas, and Accenture.
 
 
 The company reportedly doubled the number of customers year-over-year (YoY) since 2017 to over 300 customers as of August 2021 of whom around half were North American. The company claims that, with the use of their technology, businesses can achieve a 10x quicker time to market, 97% productivity gains, and a 90% reduction in application errors. As of August 2021, the company operates nine offices throughout Europe, North America, and Asia.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In August 2021, Leapwork raised USD 62 million in Series B financing led by KKR and Salesforce Ventures, at a USD 312 million valuation. The company intends to use these funds to recruit new full-time employees in key markets, invest in global expansion, and open tech hubs to advance product development efforts.
 
</div>

Leapwork

<div>
 
 Anvil offers a workflow-building platform that allows users to transform paper processes and PDF documents into digital workflows, using a no-code building tool as well as an API suite with more technical features for developers. The no-code workflow-building tool named &ldquo;Workflows&rdquo; enables users to convert PDF and paper forms into logic-driven web forms to streamline digital data collection and request signatures. Users can then share the completed, signed PDFs and/or data from a secure link.&nbsp;
 
 
 The tool eliminates the repetition of information in entries on multiple documents by using a logic engine that ensures interlinked forms are filled out properly. Moreover, Anvil&rsquo;s own &ldquo;Etch E-sign&rdquo; features, as well as integration with DocuSign, allow users to share and sign forms directly on the platform.&nbsp;
 
 
 In March 2023, Anvil launched a new suite of enterprise products, which include APIs and no-code tools, to enable users to collect data, generate PDFs, and gather signatures within any application. These tools include conditional logic, lists, hidden fields, multi-field editing, single sign-on (SSO), and the ability to embed workflow and template builders.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 Anvil&rsquo;s integration with Zapier allows users to connect &ldquo;Workflows'' to over 6,000 applications. Anvil provides targeted solutions for the banking and wealth management industries with clients such as Citi, Ameritrade, and Catalyst Wealth Management.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In March 2023, Anvil 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17421">
 raised USD 10 million
 </a>
 in Series A funding from Craft Ventures and Gradient Ventures to secure more enterprise customers, grow its market, and expand its employee base.
 
</div>

Anvil

UiPath offers a low-code process automation platform that includes a suite of products that&nbsp;spans the entire automation lifecycle—from process discovery to automation development and management. These include: 1)&nbsp;process discovery tools that include process and task mining tools, as well as idea capture and management; 2) development tools that include robotic process automation (RPA) software, process orchestration, and intelligent document processing; and 3) operations tools that include automation performance analytics.&nbsp;Users can build automation for a range of repetitive tasks, such as logging into applications, data extraction, moving folders, filling forms, and updating information fields, across a range of business functions like HR, IT, and compliance.&nbsp;In October 2023, the company launched “Autopilot,” a GenAI-powered tool that enables users to automate using natural language. Users can convert documents such as PDFs and images into automation applications, accelerate process testing, and filter, summarize, and create dashboards for process mining.&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27785">In March 2024</a>,&nbsp;UiPath, launched new features for Autopilot that enable users to create automations,&nbsp;code, and expressions with natural language. Users can generate step-by-step test cases from requirements and any other source documents, generate automations from test steps, and surface insights from test results.&nbsp;Additionally, the company launched&nbsp;several new&nbsp;GenAI features in its&nbsp;platform, including:&nbsp;1) context grounding, which enables users to improve the accuracy of GenAI models via retrieval augmented generation, 2) new large language models (LLMs), specifically designed for document and communications&nbsp;processing, and 3) connectors, which enable users to leverage a number of foundation models from IBM's watsonx.ai platform.UiPath has also expanded its presence in the automation space through acquisitions. In March 2021, the company acquired Elements, an API integration platform, for an undisclosed amount. It leveraged the acquisition to provide API-based automation capabilities to its clients. UiPath went on to acquire Re:infer, a natural language processing platform, in August 2022 to provide its users with the capability to deploy custom machine-learning models to analyze documents and communications data.Key partnerships and customersUiPath has an extensive partner ecosystem with a range of&nbsp;companies, including technology partners that develop integrations for the platform, such as Adobe, Alteryx, DocuSign, Salesforce, and OutSystems, as well as cloud providers like AWS, Google, and Microsoft. The platform provides users access to over 1,400 reusable automation integrations and components to multiple applications, databases, and systems (as of October 2023).&nbsp;In February 2024, the company&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27109">extended its partnership with Google Cloud</a> to make its platform accessible to a wider range of users via the Google Cloud Marketplace. The partnership also enabled the company to leverage 1) Google’s Vertex AI platform to enable users to infuse GenAI insights into their automations and 2) Google Workspace to offer users access to over 100 Google Cloud and Google Workspace integration activities.&nbsp;In March 2024, the company&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27554">partnered with Deloitte</a> to introduce a new implementation methodology for enterprise resource planning (ERP) software developed by SAP. It went on to&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/34847">launch an integration</a> with SAP's "Build" process automation software, in October 2024, to enable customers to migrate to SAP S/4HANA Cloud and automate processes across various SAP-based enterprise applications.&nbsp;The company has also entered a number of GenAI-focused partnerships with cloud and AI infrastructure providers.&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/29849">In May 2024</a>, UiPath integrated Microsoft’s GenAI assistant, Copilot for Microsoft 365, into its automation platform to provide joint customers direct access to UiPath’s automation capabilities directly within Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Teams.&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/35133">In October 2024</a>, it went on to integrate Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet language model into three key products: UiPath Autopilot, Clipboard AI, and a new GenAI healthcare solution. Moreover, during the same period, it&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/35134">partnered with Inflection AI</a>, an LLM developer, to offer an integration that enables users to keep their data on-premises while accessing Inflection AI's system and agentic automation capabilities.As of January 2023, UiPath served over 10,800 customers across a range of industries, including the American Red Cross, BMW Group, Carlsberg, Fujifilm, Japan Airlines, Korea Telecom, and the US Department of Defense.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

UiPath

<div>
 
 Appian offers a low-code platform that provides a suite of products that enable users to build, automate and optimize internal workflows and business processes across the finance, sales, and procurement functions. Users can leverage Appian&rsquo;s low-code declarative programming language named &ldquo;SAIL&rdquo; to build end-to-end process automation, including robotic process automation (RPA) bots, as well as connect customers, employees, systems, and AI. The platform also enables continuous monitoring of processes, tracking business metrics, performance, and return on investment via process dashboards and scorecards.&nbsp;
 
 
 In May 2023, the company released an AI Skill Designer, a low-code tool that enables users to build, train, and deploy custom machine-learning (ML) models. Users can leverage the company&rsquo;s native AI/ML services to integrate AI into existing business functions and automate repetitive tasks such as document classification, email classification and document extraction. Moreover, the company went on to launch &ldquo;AI Copilot,&rdquo; a GenAI-powered assistant, in August 2023. Through this, the company aims to allow users to create workflows using natural language as well as query Appian's data fabric architecture for self-service analytics with instant reports.
 
 
 Appian has expanded its offerings through acquisitions. The company acquired Novayre Solutions, an RPA platform, in 2020 and Lana Labs, a process mining company, in 2021, for undisclosed amounts. It leveraged these acquisitions to expand its automation and RPA, as well as process mining and optimization solutions respectively.
 
 
 Key partnerships and customers
 
 
 Appian has an extensive partner ecosystem with a range of companies, including service partner companies, such as FDM and Revature, and industry-specific technology companies to expand its services for enterprises. In 2021, the company partnered with Redox, a healthcare data platform, to enable health systems and payer entities to securely share patient medical record information. Appian also went on to partner with Swiss Re in October 2023 to launch &ldquo;Connected Underwriting Life Workbench.&rdquo; The solution enables insurers to evaluate and classify risk and handle exceptions and decisions on applications via a single interface.&nbsp;
 
 
 In February 2024, Appian 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27108">
 partnered with Symphony
 </a>
 , a provider of financial services workflow management solutions, to offer secure communication solutions and automated processes to financial institutions. The partnership enables users to embed auditable omnichannel communications on a number of popular platforms into their workflows on the Appian platform. This includes messaging and voice networks such as WhatsApp, WeChat, and SMS. In April 2024, the company went on to 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/28503">
 partner with AWS
 </a>
 , to combine its own in-built AI capabilities and data fabric with large language models (LLMs) and machine learning services offered by Amazon Bedrock and SageMaker. Appian users can leverage these capabilities to host LLMs while ensuring compliance and data security and create, train, and fine-tune proprietary AI models using their own data. During the same period, the company also
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/28530">
 expanded its partnership with TELUS international
 </a>
 , a Canadian IT services company, to develop an automation-as-a-service product.&nbsp;
 
 
 Appian&rsquo;s data fabric comprises a library of integrations to enterprise systems (such as AWS, Oracle, Salesforce, and DocuSign) that can be used to connect and unify data.&nbsp;
 
 
 As of December 2022, the company served 925 enterprise customers, including Aon, Bayer, Deloitte, Union Bank, Sanofi, and Munich Re, across a range of industries.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 &nbsp;
 
 
 The company generated USD 468 million in revenue in 2022. However, the company was yet to turn profitable with an operating loss of USD USD 145 million in 2022. The company expected revenue to reach USD 538 million&ndash;543 million in 2023 (implying YoY growth of ~15%&ndash;16%).
 
</div>

Appian

Platforms that automate accounting and finance operations such as accounts receivable, reconciliation, transaction matching, financial close management, and intercompany financial management

Software to streamline and automate sales, marketing, and customer relationship management processes, such as qualifying leads, renewal, sales forecasts, pipeline tracking, and identifying overdue closing dates

Platforms that govern repetitive HR and admin processes such as recruitment management, employee onboarding, surveys, HRIS records, and assigning buddies

Platforms to automate operational workflows such as task monitoring and flows, streamlining facility requests, and supply chain management

Platforms that specialize in automating functions other than the four identified segments. These include platforms that automate IT, compliance, claims processing, cybersecurity, and product development

Platforms that offer a range of workflow automation and RPA bots that are not specifically targeted at any business function

Companies which utilize GenAI as a core part of their product offering for workflow automation

Offers solutions for businesses to build workflows and delivers them on a SaaS basis

Used together with RPA bots to optimize existing workflows and build new ones

Uses NLP to understand the information, especially unstructured information, present in workflows

Can automate workloads for several business functions for employees regardless of where they are

Used to extract data, understand and analyze unstructured data, and also deal with high-volume workflows

Automation Hero

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