Voice recognition and SaaS management platforms tap funding
Innovators Spotlight
Deepgram, a company developing voice-recognition tech for customers including Spotify and NASA, won big in this week’s investment round closures, allowing it to develop its system that can capture and evaluate a huge variety of speech sounds. Zylo, an AI-driven SaaS management startup, also won big to build out its platform.
Deepgram more than doubles capital raised for voice-recognition tech
Deepgram, a company developing voice-recognition tech for enterprises, has nabbed $47m in new funding led by Madrona Venture Group, bringing the startup’s total raised to $86m. Deepgram, whose customers include Spotify and NASA, sources, creates, labels and evaluates speech data to produce models that can understand brands and jargon, capture an array of languages and accents, and adapt to challenging audio environments.
Zylo, a SaaS management platform startup, has raised $31.5m in Series C funding led by Baird Capital’s Venture Team, bringing its total capital to date to $64m. Zylo's platform taps AI to analyze SaaS spend and usage in real time, creating a system of record that shows how a company's portfolio, licenses and pricing stack up against industry benchmarks.
SPHERE’s privileged access management platform offers secure digital identities
SPHERE Technology Solutions (SPHERE), an identity-hygiene provider which helps enterprise security teams control access to sensitive information, has raised $31m in series B funding led by growth equity firm Edison Partners. The startup's flagship solution, SPHEREboard, offers an end-to-end workflow for managing end-user and privileged account controls across cloud and on-premises infrastructure.
Sanctuary receives fresh funding to build human-like intelligence for robots
Sanctuary Cognitive Systems Corporation, a Vancouver-based startup trying to create the world’s first human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots, has received a $30m investment from the government of Canada's Strategic Innovation Fund, taking its total funding raised to more than $100m. Sanctuary is working to improve the quality of the work experience, assist humans with difficult or dangerous tasks, create new jobs and bring new opportunities to those who might be less capable of physical work by leveraging its breakthrough technology in AI, cognition, and robotics.
Shield shops $20m for AI-driven data leak prevention
Shield, an AI-based data security startup, has secured $20m as part of a series B funding round led by Macquarie Capital. To prevent data leaks, Shield’s financial compliance solution uses AI to conduct behavioral analysis and monitor employee activity across communication platforms including WhatsApp, Slack and Microsoft Teams.
Gorilla secures €6m to grow energy data management platform
Belgium-based energy data start-up Gorilla has raised $6.5m in a Series A to build out its cloud-based data processing platform. Launched four years ago, Gorilla’s cloud-based software enables energy firms to process substantial quantities of data from smart meters, electric vehicles and Internet-of-Things devices. Its clients include UK-based firms British Gas, ScottishPower and Shell, as well as France-based Engie.
Bulgaria-based AR/VR cloud-to-edge computing startup takes first funding steps
QuarkXR, an enterprise AR/VR startup is raising €1.5m in an ongoing round of funding, with €725,000 so far provided by VC fund Vitosha Venture Partners and unnamed backers. The Sofia-headquartered startup has developed a software product that uses cloud-to-edge computing to render high-fidelity graphics and 3D modeling, which it claims effectively turns "any XR headset into a super computer." Lauded by Nvidia as a cloud XR "pioneer," QuarkXR has been invited into the Bosch Startup Harbour ecosystem, opening further potential to apply its XR in future-of-work, AI and IoT settings.
Smart data management startup Heex Technologies closes pre-seed round
Heex Technologies, a smart data management startup that helps developers tackle delivery of AI apps, has secured a €3.2m pre-seed round led by early-stage VC firm Karista. The French company's smart data stack runs from the cloud and on edge devices such as connected vehicles, as well as featuring a simulation development kit that frees enterprises to turn its smart data into "virtualized intelligent systems."
