Y Combinator is a startup accelerator that invests in a large number of startups twice a year. It created a new model for funding startups. Twice a year, the company invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups. The startup accelerator works intensively with the companies for three months, to get them into the best possible shape and refine their pitch to investors. Each cycle culminates in Demo Day when the startups present their companies to a carefully selected, invite-only audience.

Y Combinator

Array Ventures is focused on solving impactful problems using revolutionary technology. Often that means category-leading startups that take advantage of data, analytics, workflows, and new platforms to change the way an industry works.   They invest in smart people with a bold mission who take big risks in large or new markets. They want entrepreneurs to tell us what the world is going to look like in 2, 5, 10 years, and why they are going to be to be a winner in that world.

Array Ventures

Blumberg Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that partners with visionary entrepreneurs to build successful technology companies that empower individuals, businesses and society through the innovative use of AI, big data and other transformative technologies. We are passionate about nurturing B2B technology companies from Seed stage through their growth journey, as active board members and hands-on advisors. We were among the first investors in industry leaders including Addepar, Braze, Credorax, DoubleVerify, Fundbox, HootSuite, Katapult, Nutanix, Trulioo and Yotpo. Find us in San Francisco, Tel Aviv, Miami and New York or at blumbergcapital.com.

Blumberg Capital

Momenta is the leading Industrial Impact® venture capital firm, accelerating industrial innovators across energy, manufacturing, smart spaces, and the supply chain. For over a decade, our team of deep industry operators has helped scale industry leaders and innovators to improve critical industries, the environment, and people's quality of life. PitchBook has ranked Momenta as one of the ten best-performing venture capital firms for 2023 in its prestigious Global Manager Performance Score League Tables, and the firm is the only European-headquartered VC to secure a Top 10 spot on the list.

Momenta

Bain Capital Ventures invests in seed to growth-stage startups that are using tech to disrupt existing markets or create entirely new ones.  The firm invests from seed to growth in enterprise software, infrastructure software, and industries being transformed by data.  Bain Capital Ventures has helped launch and commercialize 200-plus companies since 2000, including investments in DocuSign, Jet.com, Kiva Systems, LinkedIn, Rapid7, SurveyMonkey, Taleo, and TellApart. Bain Capital Ventures has more than $5.2 billion of assets under management with offices in San Francisco, New York, and Boston.

Bain Capital Ventures

Google Ventures invests in sectors including life sciences, consumer, enterprise, crypto, climate, and frontier technology. With Alphabet as its sole limited partner, Google Ventures focuses on long-term investments. Its operating partners assist startups in design, equity, diversity & inclusion, talent, and engineering and help them connect with Google for technology and expertise. Founded in 2009 as Google Ventures, Google Ventures manages over $8 billion in assets with 400 active portfolio companies in North America and Europe. Some notable investments include Uber, Nest, Slack, GitLab, and One Medical. Google Ventures is based in the San Francisco Bay Area with offices in Cambridge, New York, and London.

Google Ventures

Bain Capital is a multi-asset alternative investment firm with assets under management and operates business units that create value through private equity, public equity, credit, and venture capital across multiple sectors and industries.

Bain Capital

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

Green D Ventures is a community of accredited Dartmouth alums who pool money into a VC fund to invest in Dartmouth-connected companies. Simply put, they believe they can invest better together than they can alone. They create a diverse portfolio for their investors, co-investing with leading VC funds across industry, stage, and geography. Their goal is to raise a new fund each year that benefits entrepreneurs, the school's ecosystem, and their investors.

Green D Ventures

Castor Ventures is an investment firm. Castor Ventures invests in a broad range of venture-backed companies to build diversified venture portfolios invested alongside established venture firms.

Castor Ventures

Overview.ai

Overview’s inspection systems are built with Deep Learning technology which allows us to find mistakes more consistently and in a wider variety of situations.

Overview offers smart cameras and AI to enable users 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.&nbsp;

Using data and automation to achieve 24/7 production.

Smart Factory

Overview

Overview offers smart cameras and AI to enable users 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.&nbsp;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. Moreover, it reportedly offers 100% visual traceability and an over 99.9% uptime.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsAs of September 2024, the solution was used by a number of enterprises, including Schaeffler, ThermoFischer, Honda, Caterpillar, and Tyson.&nbsp;

Avathon (formerly SparkCognition) offers a suite of AI-powered data analytics solutions for businesses, specializing in the industrial sector. The company’s offerings include: 1) Industrial AI Suite, which enables users to connect datasets with configurable AI models, identify and contextualize risks to equipment, analyze maintenance actions, monitor performance, and visualize multi-asset systems, without requiring coding experience, and 2) Visual AI Advisor, which leverages computer vision to analyze real-time data from existing camera infrastructure for a number of different use cases, such as safety monitoring, visual inspection, and machine monitoring.&nbsp;In May 2023, the company launched the Generative AI Suite, a solution specifically tailored for the industrial sector, which enables users to build and deploy custom large language models (LLMs) on either private or on-premise cloud environments. Users also autonomously augment data sets by generating text, images, audio, and other signals and create imagery for use in simulated real-world environments. It claims to&nbsp;reduce the foundational information needed for decision-making by up to 20x.Since 2021, the company has acquired a number of companies to further develop its product offering. This includes Indian visual AI startup&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9370?industryIds=6">Integration Wizards</a> (March 2022) to expand its intellectual property (IP) portfolio to improve vision capabilities as well as digital knowledge platform Maana (July 2021), software developer for the renewable energy industry Ensemble Energy (May 2021), and financial technology company AIM2 (February 2021).&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/34997">In October 2024,&nbsp;</a>Avathon unveiled a new system-level AI platform that provides solutions for managing and monitoring critical industrial infrastructure. The AI platform addresses various industrial issues, including maximizing the uptime of capital-intensive assets, enabling efficient manufacturing ramp-up, and ensuring worker safety in industrial settings.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsSparkCognition’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’s machine learning technology with OSIsoft’s PI system to improve data and process data analytics.&nbsp;

Avathon

Sight Machine offers a manufacturing data platform that captures and contextualizes data from factories to deliver a system-wide view of the manufacturing process as well as individual assets. The platform transforms raw plant data as well as data from machines of various manufacturers into a standardized data foundation and provides actionable insights for a range of use cases such as predictive maintenance, quality improvement, and capacity utilization. Users can analyze all assets, data sources, and processes by creating digital twins, thereby improving processes, quality, and productivity.&nbsp;In October 2022, Sight Machine introduced <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13696?industryIds=6">Blueprint</a>, a tool developed in collaboration with NVIDIA and Microsoft, which uses AI for high-speed, automated data labeling. The company claims that this solution enables manufacturers to analyze up to 100x more of their data than traditional methods.&nbsp; Key customers and partnershipsSight Machine caters to at least 15 verticals, such as food and beverage, electronics, and automotive. Its global clientele includes Fortune 500 companies such as Nissan, Heineken, Westrock Co., and Asian Paints.&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21955">In September 2023</a>, Sight Machine partnered with LS Electric, a power and automation solutions provider, to create an AI-driven Big Data analytics platform tailored for the manufacturing and energy sectors. In December 2023, the company went on to partner with Teamviewer, a remote collaboration solutions provider, to offer a joint product that combines the latter’s remote connectivity and industrial AR solutions with its real-time data and analysis for industrial processes.&nbsp;Sight Machine has established partnerships with large global companies such as Microsoft, Google, Databricks, Siemens, and AWS to integrate with their data analytics platforms and Fujitsu to help with wide deployments. In July 2023, the platform also became a certified Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing partner and released Factory CoPilot, integrating its Manufacturing Data Platform with Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to offer GenAI capabilities for manufacturing analysis and real-time insights. The company went on to launch the<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/33441"> Sight Machine connector for Databricks</a> (in September 2024), to integrate its manufacturing data platform with the latter’s data intelligence platform.

Sight Machine

Bright Machines combines robotics, machine learning, and computer vision to provide automation applications for the electronics manufacturing industry. Its flagship product is the “Bright Machines Microfactory,” a pre-integrated, programmable assembly line that can be deployed in existing and new production facilities. The Microfactory runs on the company's proprietary “Brightware” cloud-based software platform, offering a scalable solution that enables manufacturers to enhance supply chain resilience and adapt production capacity according to market demand. This software-defined manufacturing allows factories to change the products that they manufacture if needed. The company offers its service on a subscription-based microfactory-as-a-service (MaaS) business model.The company reportedly generated USD 83 million in revenue in 2021. In May 2021, Bright Machines reported that its revenue doubled each year since its inception (2018) and forecasts a 5-year CAGR (2020-2025) of over 84%.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsBright Machines served over 40 manufacturing companies as of October 2022.The company collaborated with Microsoft Azure in May 2024 to leverage the latter’s infrastructure to deliver a full-stack environment for all stages of the manufacturing lifecycle.The company also has distribution/sales partnerships with Anstar Corporation (April 2021), SMT Capital (April 2021), MaRC Technologies (May 2021), PAC Global (May 2021), Restronics (June 2021), <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/3618">BROCK Electronics</a> (June 2021), <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4740">Murray Percival</a> (July 2021), <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4412">Competitive Edge Manufacturing Equipment</a> (CEME; July 2021).Key competitors: None comparable (Bright Machines is the only company in the smart factory industry that offers microfactories-as-a-service, which combines intelligent software with adaptive hardware to automate manufacturing processes.)

Bright Machines

Augury offers AI-based predictive maintenance solutions. It uses wireless halo sensors to record the vibration, temperature, and magnetism of machines and upload them to the cloud, where AI will be used to diagnose faults and predict potential malfunctions. The system can predict failures and provide early, actionable insights on equipment status, allowing companies to plan maintenance more effectively. Augury offers Machine Health solutions for Critical Assets (MH CR) and Supporting Equipment (MH SE).&nbsp;Furthermore, it offers a warranty policy (one-of-a-kind in the predictive maintenance field) for up to USD 100,000 of repairs and replacements if the software fails to successfully predict machine faults. The company reported that its machine health (predictive maintenance) solutions can deliver an ROI of 3x–10x. In December 2023, the company launched a product loss guarantee solution, in partnership with HSB, which covers a broader range of production-related assets, including protection against production loss due to mechanical failures.&nbsp;In May 2022, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10286">Augury acquired Seebo,</a> another Israeli company that offers predictive quality and yield solutions for manufacturers to identify process-driven inefficiencies.&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsAugury has built a customer base consisting of companies such as Hershey’s, Colgate-Palmolive, Grundfos, Heineken, Danone, and Bausch Health. The company announced an insurance plan for its customers in 2020, partly as a strategy to attract more customers. Augury’s Machine Health Solutions are integrated with PTC’s ThingWorx IoT through a partnership in July 2020 and are available in the PTC Marketplace. In October 2021, it partnered with Baker Hughes, a provider of energy technology solutions, which integrated Augury’s solutions into its System 1 software and asset performance management (APM) solutions. It went on to integrate Baker Hughes’ “Ranger Pro” wireless condition monitoring sensor and “Cordant” gateway into its platform in June 2024.&nbsp;In November 2023, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/23991">Augury partnered with IFS Ultimo</a>, a provider of cloud-based enterprise asset management (EAM) solutions, to offer machine health monitoring and asset management workflows for industries. It went on to partner with DSV, a logistics solutions provider, in March 2024, to introduce a new Parts As a Service (PaaS) solution. The solution utilizes machine health to predict machine faults and enables users to automate the procurement of replacement parts.

Augury

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

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