Intel Capital Announces $38 million Investments in 12 Startups

Today at its Global Summit in San Diego, Intel Capital announced $38 million of new investments in 12 startups that develop technology I four categories: autonomous machines, data and connectivity, sports and health and virtual reality.

According to the company, the 17^th Intel Capital Global Summit gathers nearly 1,000 entrepreneurs, investors and technology business executives who will help create the future of technology. Among the distinguished speakers are Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff, PayPal Chairman John Donahue, and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich.

This morning, representatives from all 12 startups were sharing their insights on stage during four panels, see below a brief overview of their technology. I met a few of them, and I will publish a few articles with more details regarding their particular products and technologies.

Autonomous Machines

Robotics and automation is becoming more and more present in our lives since computing power, cloud services and artificial intelligence and machine learning new algorithms have been developed. Autonomous driving became one of the trendiest topic this year at CES in Las Vegas, and we expect to see more of that in 2017.

The first panel session was made of 3 companies in the field:

Chronocam (Paris, France) develops a new kind of computer vision sensors and systems inspired by the human eye. According to CEO and co-founder Luca standard computer vision technologies found in smartphone or surveillance systems take a sequence of pictures and analyze one after the other to understand what is going on in a scene.

Chronocam, does it differently, knowing that the human eye is only reactive to what is changing, the startup is trying to create “an image sensor that mimics the biologic eye, that leads to a very fast reaction time which is independent from lighting conditions” said Co-Founder and CEO Luca Verre. The company’s mission and goal is to “set a new standard in computer vision based on our technology” stated Verre, at the end of his speech.

Embodied (Pasadena, California, U.S.), Co-founded by the former CTO of iRobot, maker of Roomba, CEO Paolo Pirjanian, the company is focused on robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). Embodied is developing “life-like interactive characters to focus on something that will be very helpful, unfortunately since the company is in stealth mode I cannot talk about specific applications, but I can tell you it will be companion robots that will help our families and children to be nurtured and improve their quality of life” said Co-Founder and CEO Paolo Pirjanian.

Since the tech is in stealth mode we did not learn too much about Embodied’s product except that it is based on the last 15 years of research that Paolo Pirjanian’s partner has been doing in the University of South California around socially assistive robots that “help elderly with Alzheimer, dementia all the way to children with development disabilities” said Pirjanian.

Thanks to former iRobot CTO’s years of experience in consumer robotic, this complex R&D that “provides care” will be packaged in an affordable robotic product that could appeal to consumers. I am very curious to see those robots once they will be ready to launch, and see how they will be really useful for families!

Perrone Robotics (Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.) provides software and solutions that make it easier and faster to build mobile autonomous robotics applications.

“We create a software platform for autonomous vehicles and robots, and we call it Platform Max and we like to say that MAX is to robots what Windows is to computers or Android to smart phone, it enables customers to create more rapidly complex robotics applications.” Stated Foundr & CEO Paul Perrone.

Data and Connectivity

Eazytec (Jiangsu, China) is a smart city developer and service provider with proprietary core firmware (BIOS) technology. Bill Lu, Vice President, EazyTec was on stage to present the company, which provides solutions, among others, for monitoring water and air in China, using IoT technologies.

Grand Chip Microelectronics (aka Kangxi Communication Technologies) (Shanghai, China), is a “fabless” company that delivers high-performance and affordable connectivity solutions for WLAN, Wi-Fi or cellular platforms and IoT. While on stage, CEO Ping Peng recommended to talk to him during the Global Summit if you are interested to know more about his technology.

Paxata* (Redwood City, California, U.S.) is a self-service business information platform for both the business consumer and IT. With Paxata, business analysts, data engineers and data scientists can convert raw data to information ready for business efficiently. Based on a patent-pending, machine learning, natural language processing and semantic text algorithm technology built on a distributed architecture which enables massive scale. According to Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer Nenshad Bardoliwalla, “90% of the raw data was created in the last 11 months, and yet there is a very few folks in enterprise who can take that raw data and turn it into valuable contribution,Paxata mission is to take raw data and allow anybody in an organization and convert it into meaningful information”.

StealthMine* (Sunnyvale, California, U.S.) a startup still in “stealth mode” according to CEO Vikrant Karvir, that let’s enterprise applications run on encrypted data. So “even if your underlying storage, network, compute, operating system or data platform is breached your application and your application data will be secure” said Karvir.

Sports and Health

CubeWorks* (Ann Harbor, Michigan, U.S.) creates the next-gen minuscule computers that measure a few millimeters and will enable the first autonomous wireless sensing platforms.

Kinduct* (Halifax, Canada) delivers cloud-based data and analytics software for sport organizations, military and public safety units, healthcare providers, and wellness institutions. Aggregating data from multiple sources into a single actionable platform, Kinduct enables its customers to provide better care and better recomendations.

K4Connect* (Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.) is a software platform that leverages IoT, sensing and mobile devices by integrating them into a single dashboard in senior living communities, to create smarter, healthier and happier environments for patients and families. I met with the company after the press conference, I will publish more details on the K4Connect software.

Virtual Reality

Dysonics* (San Francisco, California, U.S.) provides a software / hardware solution to professionals to capture and render 360-degree sound in real time, for VR live streaming experiences. Stay tuned, I have met Dysonics Co-Founder and CEO Robert Dalton Jr. and he told me a lot more about his technology.

InContext Solutions* (Chicago, Illinois, U.S.) develops cloud-based virtual reality solutions for manufacturers and retailers, to help them simulate new services and products in VR before going to production.

Disclaimer: Intel Capital has invited Eliane Fiolet to be a speaker at the Intel Capital Summit 2016. Her flights and accommodation are paid for by Intel. We pay for our travel expenses to events like CES, MWC, etc… but when we are invited, we want to be transparent about it. Check our travel policy page.

Eliane Fiolet
Categories: Computers
Tags: AI (Artificial Intelligence), autonomous driving, big data, computer vision, digital health, Intel, intel capital, Robotics