Tag Archives: Venture Capital

Indico Data Achieves Record ARR, 60% New Logo Growth as Global Carriers Leverage Industry’s First Agentic Decisioning Platform

.406 Venture

Surging demand for decision automation in commercial and specialty insurance fuels Indico’s record ARR gains and global expansion

 

Boston, MA – September 2, 2025 – Indico Data, the leading Agentic Decisioning Platform for commercial and specialty insurance, today announced record annual recurring revenue (ARR) alongside 60% year-over-year growth in new carrier customers during the first half of 2025. This momentum underscores the market’s demand for AI-driven solutions that enable faster, more accurate underwriting and claims decisions while maintaining compliance and oversight. The results come at a critical time, as insurers face unprecedented submission volumes, limited underwriting capacity, and escalating operational costs.

In the first six months of 2025, Indico has expanded its customer base and added a number of top-tier carriers across North America and the UK, while existing customers expanded beyond initial deployments to encompass submission intake, clearance, policy issuance, and claims workflows. Indico welcomed these new customers on the heels of significant product milestones, including the launch of the industry’s first Agentic Decisioning Platform purpose-built for insurance, the release of out-of-the-box ingestion and data enrichment agents, and the attainment of Guidewire ClaimsCenter certification, enabling seamless integration with one of the industry’s leading core systems.

Indico’s leadership has been further validated by Gartner, which recognized the company in two influential 2025 Hype Cycle reports — the Hype Cycle for P&C Insurance in the Digital Underwriting category, and the Hype Cycle for Artificial Intelligence in the Composite AI category.

As the global insurance industry navigates a persistent hard market, economic pressure, and scarcity of skilled underwriting talent, carriers are re-engineering their operations to make faster, more accurate, and more transparent decisions. Indico’s Agentic Decisioning platform addresses these challenges directly, enabling customers to cut manual intake work by up to 100% in high-confidence cases, reduce quote-to-bind cycles from weeks to days, and increase underwriter capacity by automating low-value administrative tasks.

“Insurers are no longer experimenting with AI — they’re operationalizing it at scale,” said Tom Wilde, CEO of Indico Data. “Our record growth and customer expansion in H1 2025 show that Indico has become core decision infrastructure for leading carriers worldwide. The launch of our Agentic Decisioning Platform marks a new phase in insurance transformation, where speed, accuracy, and auditability are built into every decision.”

With additional agentic capabilities set to launch in the second half of 2025, Indico plans to extend its platform deeper into policy servicing and claims operations, while continuing to expand its out-of-the-box workflow library for faster time to value.

About Indico Data
Indico Data turns chaotic submissions into confident decisions. Built for underwriting and claims operations, our Agentic Decisioning Platform uses Generative and Agentic AI to ingest and enrich complex submissions and claims — accelerating triage, eliminating manual work, and surfacing the right risks instantly. Where legacy tools stop at extraction, Indico delivers speed, accuracy, and full transparency across every decision point. Learn more at www.indicodata.ai.

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Deepening Our Partnership With Anthropic

Lightspeed

True tipping points in technology are rare. Over the past few decades, we’ve witnessed the rise of software, the internet, the cloud, and mobile, each wave reshaping how companies operate and how people live. The impact has been extraordinary but so too was the noise that surrounded them, as the technologies matured and the true winners emerged.

AI is different. Its potential to transform our lives is even more profound. As the past three years have shown, the pace and intensity of change have been almost relentless. Amid this whirlwind, Anthropic has stood out as a steady force. Their mission is simple yet powerful: to scale intelligence that is both trustworthy and safe. The team’s execution against that vision has been exceptional, and it’s why we’re proud to deepen our partnership with Anthropic in their Series F.

Singular Focus – Clarity in the Chaos

Amid the daily noise in the AI world – Anthropic’s vision has remained simple and clear from the beginning:

  1. Scaling Intelligence: Anthropic’s team has been laser-focused on advancing frontier foundation models, driven by the conviction that core model performance, not “application scaffolding”, is the key to unlocking new capabilities. When the world seemingly panicked as DeepSeek launched their models in early 2025, Anthropic stayed disciplined pushing forward on the fundamentals of advancing intelligence.
  2. Safety & Reliability: Anthropic’s obsessive focus on safety and reliability is more than good citizenship – it’s their ultimate competitive advantage. At some point we’ll see a “WannaCry moment” in AI, just as the 2017 ransomware attack forced enterprises to take cybersecurity seriously. When it comes, the world will demand the safety and alignment capabilities Anthropic has been building since day one.
  3. Enterprise: Anthropic’s enterprise focus flows directly from its priorities on responsibly scaling intelligence so it is both powerful and reliable and safe. Nowhere else is trustworthy intelligence more valuable than in businesses and government institutions. For these stakeholders and institutions safety isn’t theoretical. It’s existential. We believe Anthropic’s mission-driven approach to safety makes them a natural and valuable partner in the enterprise market.

When Focus Meets Opportunity

When a clear strategy meets an opportunity of unprecedented scale, the result is adoption at a speed rarely seen in history. At the start of 2025, fresh off their Series E, Anthropic had already reached run-rate revenue of ~$1B, less than two years after publicly launching their first model. Today, the company has surpassed $5B, making Anthropic the fastest growing technology company ever.

This growth is a direct result of scaling intelligence. Each leap in model capabilities, unlocks new use-cases and opens trillion-dollar markets for innovation. We are now seeing this acceleration across healthcare, legal, financial services, biotech and drug discovery, and nearly every type of knowledge work.

Nowhere is this shift clearer than in software development. Over the past 18 months, Anthropic’s models have gone from simple code completion to more than seven hours of independent, autonomous coding. Claude’s agentic coding product, Claude Code, has grown from research preview to >$500M in run-rate revenue in just three months. Claude Code exemplifies the paradigm shift underway – while apps package existing capabilities, it is core model intelligence that creates new ones. The value is in the model.

Our Partnership: Backing the Future

For over two years, Lightspeed has backed Anthropic’s singular mission through three consecutive investments. We believe they represent the rare combination of incredible ambition, technical excellence, and unwavering commitment to beneficial outcomes.

Anthropic’s talent-dense team understands that intelligence matters more than features, depth more than breadth. Their technology aims to enhance our public institutions, supercharge economic activity across enterprises, and help individuals solve their most complex problems.

As frontier AI advances exponentially, Anthropic is positioned to become one of the most transformational companies of our generation. We’re proud to support them on this journey to scale intelligence for the benefit of all.

 

The content here should not be viewed as investment advice, nor does it constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities. Certain statements herein are the opinions and beliefs of Lightspeed; other market participants could take different views.

Authors

Ravi Mhatre

Ravi Mhatre

Guru Chahal

Guru Chahal

Sebastian Duesterhoeft

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Cove Raises an additional $16 Million to ExpandAI-Native Insurance Platform and Offer Strategic Exit Options to Agency Partners

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San Francisco, CA – August, 2025 – COVU, the AI-native operating system for insurance, today announced it has raised $16 million in new capital, including equity and growth financing. This brings the company’s total funding to around $50 million to date, fueling its mission to transform how insurance is delivered, serviced, and experienced through agencies and partners.
The funding will accelerate platform development, expand operational infrastructure, and offer independent agency partners more options: whether they want to scale their operations or step away through a structured, supported transition.

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“We’re not here to sell software,” said Ali Safavi, CEO of COVU. “We’re building the infrastructure that powers the future of insurance. Our goal is to help agencies operate with more intelligence, more efficiency, and more care, while preserving the advisor relationship that customers trust.”
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A Modern Operating System for Independent Insurance

COVU supports insurance agencies with a full-service platform that combines AI-native technology, licensed support staff, and centralized customer operations. This allows agencies to streamline servicing, boost profitability, and modernize their customer experience without building infrastructure on their own.
The platform includes:

  • AI-powered customer support and automation.
  • End-to-end servicing delivered by licensed professionals
  • Direct carrier access and appetite matching
  • Compliance, staffing, and operational oversight
  • Growth and M&A enablement for partners ready to expand or exit

COVU’s role is not to replace agencies, but to power them. The company operates behind the scenes, delivering outcomes instead of tools, and protecting the advisor-customer relationship at every step.

Acquisition as a Continuation of Partnership

COVU has completed seven agency acquisitions to date. Each one originated as a servicing partnership. When a partner chooses to exit, COVU offers a seamless, non-disruptive path that ensures continuity for clients, staff, and carrier relationships.

“We believe deeply in the agency model,” Safavi added. “We help our partners grow and evolve, but we also support them when they’re ready for a transition. That flexibility is critical to modernizing this industry with care and respect.”

Accelerating the Future of Insurance Operations

With this capital, COVU will continue to expand its AI-native platform and servicing infrastructure, onboard new carrier partners, and support both organic and M&A-driven growth for agencies across the country.
As the industry faces growing complexity and capacity constraints, COVU provides agencies and carriers with a clear path forward. A modern insurance experience, delivered with technology, trust, and operational excellence.

About COVU

COVU is the AI-native operating system for insurance. Built for independent agencies, the platform provides licensed servicing staff, centralized operations, embedded AI workflows, and access to top carriers. Whether growing, operating, or exiting, agencies trust COVU to simplify insurance, protect their customer relationships, and power their future.
Media Contact:

Sumukh Lohani
press@covu.com
COVU, Inc.

548 Market St, PMB 24487, San Francisco, California 94104

covu.com/press

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Emerald Invests in Waterly: Enabling the Digital Transformation of North America’s Water Infrastructure

Emerald

Zurich, Switzerland – Global climate tech leader Emerald has invested in a $4 million Series A financing round for Waterly, a US-based software company digitizing the operations of water and wastewater utilities across North America. Emerald is participating in the round, which was led by Burnt Island Ventures.

Founded in 2020 by industry veteran Chris Sosnowski, Waterly replaces outdated clipboard-and-spreadsheet workflows with a mobile-first, cloud-native software platform designed specifically for the needs of utility operators. In just five years, the company has scaled to support over 5,000 users and more than 1,000 water and wastewater systems, including industry leader American Water.

“Waterly is solving one of the water sector’s most entrenched problems with elegance and empathy: how to make digital transformation accessible to thousands of utilities still operating with pen and paper,” said Clayton MacDougald, Investment Director at Emerald. “Chris and his team have built an intuitive, secure, and scalable platform that’s beloved by operators—and we’re excited to support their mission of bringing smart water tools to every corner of the market.”

Simplifying Operations, Empowering Operators

Waterly’s flagship product, Rounds, digitizes data collection during facility rounds, transforming it into a structured, auditable dataset used for compliance reporting, operational insights, and organizational memory. It is compatible with SCADA and manual inputs, and is actively used by operators on smartphones and tablets on a daily basis, becoming in essence an extension of the operational team.

Water data entry in the Waterly phone app.

Expanding Suite of Solutions

Waterly’s expansion includes an integrated asset management module (Assets) acquired through the 2024 acquisition of OpWorks, and an Enterprise offering that aggregates operational data across utility portfolios.

Across its product lines, Waterly’s design principle is clear: build for operators, not IT teams. Its intuitive interface and rapid onboarding—often requiring just hours, not months—have become key differentiators in a fragmented market.

Targeting Underserved Markets with Strong Economics

Waterly is actively digitizing a vast and underserved segment: more than 80% of water and wastewater systems in North America still use manual methods for data tracking. The company focuses on a variety of customer segments from small to large utilities, contract operators and investor-owned utilities along with several industrial customers. Its pricing, based on treated flow rather than seat licenses, makes it especially attractive to budget-conscious customers.

Waterly CEO Chris Sosnowski

Driving Toward a Smarter, Safer Water Future

This financing will support Waterly’s continued investment in product development, customer success, and go-to-market expansion.

From Chris Sosnowski, CEO:

“Waterly started with a simple belief: water operators deserve better tools. It’s been amazing to see how much we’ve been able to change with just a small team and a lot of heart. Now, with Burnt Island Ventures and Emerald in our corner, we’re ready to go even bigger—helping thousands more water and wastewater heroes do their jobs with less stress and more confidence to deliver safer, smarter service to their communities.”

With water utilities under increasing pressure to modernize, Waterly is positioned as the digital operating system for a sector long overdue for transformation.

More on water and wastewater at Emerald:

Water & Wastewater

Emerald Leads SGD 8 Million Investment in SG Enviro, Driving Advanced Industrial Wastewater Treatment in SE Asia

Veralto Commits €20M to Emerald’s New Fund to Accelerate Water Innovation Solutions

About Emerald Technology Ventures

Emerald is a globally recognized venture capital firm, founded in 2000, that manages and advises assets of over €1 billion from its offices in Zurich, Toronto and Singapore. The firm invests in start-ups that tackle big challenges in climate change and sustainability, with four current funds, hundreds of venture transactions and five third-party investment mandates, including loan guarantees to over 100 start-ups.

This is Emerald.

Bold Ideas. Bright Future.  www.emerald.vc

CONTACT FOR EMERALD:

info@emerald.vc

About Waterly

Many in the water industry want to move away from outdated water data collection methods but switching to a modern solution is historically expensive and cumbersome. At Waterly, we help the water industry make this switch by implementing an affordable, easyto-use water-specific software solution in days, not months, without breaking the bank. Waterly

Contact

Mandy Sosnowski | Business Manager | 833-492-8370 | mandy@waterly.co

About Burnt Island Ventures

Burnt Island Ventures is the world’s leading venture capital firm focused exclusively on water technology, leveraging specialized expertise and comprehensive global deal flow to identify, fund, and scale breakthrough water innovations. The firm’s dedicated water investment platform connects capital with the world’s best water entrepreneurs, accelerating technologies that ensure safe, affordable, and sustainable water for communities and industries facing unprecedented water challenges.

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Reltio Unveils AgentFlow, A Set of Agents for Data Governance and Business Operations

.406 Venture

Reltio AgentFlow, built on Reltio Data Cloud, delivers autonomous agents purpose-built for critical jobs using unified, trusted enterprise data.

 

Redwood Shores, CA — August 5, 2025 — Reltio®, the leader in real-time data intelligence, today announced the launch of Reltio AgentFlow™, an innovative agentic AI platform delivering purpose-built, context-aware, autonomous agents for enterprises.

Enterprises face a growing challenge: operationalizing data governance and business workflows at scale in an environment filled with siloed systems and inconsistent data. Teams waste time on manual processes, governance backlogs pile up, and AI initiatives stall or introduce new risks due to poor data quality and lack of oversight. DIY agents and generic copilots often fall short — too shallow to deliver business outcomes, too complex to maintain, and too disconnected from the trusted data needed to take confident, autonomous action.

Built on the proven foundation of Reltio Data Cloud™, Reltio AgentFlow, delivers both the scale enterprises need to support global operations and the data precision required to automate complex, high-stakes workflows. Reltio AgentFlow Agents inherit enterprise-grade security, real-time governance policies, and rich, contextual data from Reltio’s platform, ensuring actions are accurate, auditable, and aligned with business intent. As the agentic data fabric for the enterprise, Reltio Data Cloud powers real-time data intelligence for AI transformation with trusted data across all domains.

“Enterprises urgently need agentic AI applications that go beyond experimentation. They need agents that reduce manual work and speed decision-making,” said Manish Sood, CEO and Founder of Reltio. “Generic solutions can’t deliver real outcomes without the context of enterprise knowledge. With Reltio AgentFlow, enterprises get purpose-built agents powered by Reltio Agentflow and informed by the Reltio Data Cloud, the system of context for AI, enabling automation at scale with trusted, real-time data. The result is rapid, measurable ROI for AI initiatives,  from accelerating time-to-launch and lowering operational costs to reducing regulatory risk exposure.”

Reltio AgentFlow Agents are built to make agentic AI usable and valuable across the enterprise. They offer secure, personalized, role-based experiences that adapt to the needs of different users, from data stewards to business analysts. With proactive recommendations, support for a range of large language models (LLMs), and conversational interfaces, AgentFlow brings intelligent automation to more teams—wherever and however they work.

Reltio AgentFlow Agents are designed based on Reltio’s extensive expertise in data unification and governance with the Intelligent Data Graph (knowledge context), directly mapping to pressing enterprise data tasks such as resolving matches, enriching attribution details, identifying and fixing data quality anomalies, and validating data for compliance, among others. Unlike generic AI copilots and agents, Reltio AgentFlow Agents drive immediate business outcomes with an intuitive conversational user interface, orchestration of sub-agents, long- and short-term memory, seamless tool and model integrations, all out-of-the-box.

Reltio customers, including Radisson Hotel Group and Eaton Corporation, are taking advantage of early access to AgentFlow, developing agents that will work on complex data-related tasks, such as match resolution, complex hierarchy management, data governance, and enhancing data quality.

Leading global partners Cognizant, ZS, and TCS are already supporting clients in adopting Reltio AgentFlow, leveraging it to create business operations agents that empower such clients in their businesses:

“Enterprises are navigating an increasingly complex digital landscape and require both specialized capabilities and trusted, unified data. Agentic AI platforms can be a powerful compass. Reltio’s AgentFlow platform is adept at understanding the business context and delivering secure, governed automation across data-intensive workflows. It not only automates tasks, but also adapts, unlocking new levels of efficiency, personalization, and innovation across industries,” said Satish Byravan, Global Head, Data and Analytics Practice, TCS.

“Our customers need actionable AI solutions, not just suggestions. Reltio AgentFlow provides context-driven autonomous agents that integrate seamlessly into existing business workflows, accelerating time-to-value,” said Mike Powers, principal and global master data management (MDM) practice lead at ZS, a global management consulting and technology firm.

“Reltio AgentFlow is a compelling offering for enterprises that need to scale data governance and business workflows securely,” said Diptesh Singh, at Cognizant. “The prebuilt agents enable clients to rapidly achieve compliance, productivity, and innovation outcomes while also minimizing the complexities associated with generalized AI solutions.”

Additionally, Reltio’s AgentFlow MCP (Model Context Protocol) Server allows enterprises to securely integrate Reltio AgentFlow Agents, their own custom-built agents, or third-party agents with the trusted, governed data from Reltio’s Intelligent Data Graph, ensuring consistent, context-aware actions at scale for business and data team workflows.

Reltio AgentFlow MCP Server is generally available to customers now, and Reltio AgentFlow Agents are available to select customers through Reltio’s Early Access program. General availability of Reltio AgentFlow Agents is coming soon in Fall 2025.

———————————————

At Reltio, we believe data should fuel your success in the enterprise AI era. Reltio Data Cloud is the agentic data fabric for the enterprise, powering real-time data intelligence and AI transformation. Reltio’s cloud-native SaaS platform delivers unified, trusted, and context-rich data across domains in real-time. With Reltio, organizations gain 360-degree views of customers, products, suppliers, and more—mobilized in milliseconds to any application, user, or AI agent. Trusted by the world’s largest enterprises across life sciences, financial services, healthcare, technology, and more, Reltio helps organizations fuel frictionless operations, drive innovation, and reduce risk.

“Reltio” is a registered trademark, and Reltio Data Cloud, Reltio AgentFlow and Reltio Customer 360 are trademarks of Reltio, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Contacts

Melissa Muskett
Allison Worldwide for Reltio
Reltio@allisonworldwide.com

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Emerald Leads SGD 8 Million Investment in SG Enviro, Driving Advanced Industrial Wastewater Treatment in SE Asia

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Emerald

Singapore – Emerald Technology Ventures, a global leader in climate-tech venture capital, has announced a strategic investment in SG Enviro (SGE), a Singapore-based industrial wastewater engineering firm. The SGD 8 million investment, led by Emerald, will support SGE’s expansion across Southeast Asia and the development and integration of proprietary technologies in its solution portfolio.

Founded in 2018 by environmental engineer Guah Eng Hock, SGE specializes in designing, integrating, and operating industrial wastewater treatment technologies tailored to Southeast Asia’s unique requirements.

SG Enviro Management Team

Emerald’s investment aligns with its strategy of fostering collaborations among its portfolio companies as well as corporates to accelerate the adoption of sustainable technologies. SGE will benefit from partnerships with other Emerald-backed global technology firms. It can differentiate itself by integrating leading edge technologies, while these tech companies benefit from accessing a growing yet distant market in SEA via a trusted partner.

“We look forward to connecting our global portfolio of water tech entrepreneurs with SG Enviro’s strong execution and operation capabilities,” said Dr. Helge Daebel, Head of Emerald’s Water Practice and new member of SGE’s Board. “Together, we can bring world-class solutions to Southeast Asia’s industries – where the need for water resilience has never been more urgent.”

SGE’s notable projects include the deployment of a large-scale AOP at an oil storage facility in Singapore, treating thousands of cubic meters of phenol-laden wastewater daily. The company has also secured contracts for retrofitting biogas wastewater systems at livestock farms and providing ongoing operations and maintenance services, establishing a recurring revenue model.

The investment will enable SGE to expand its footprint in Malaysia, Indonesia, and other Southeast Asian markets, where industrial wastewater treatment infrastructure is in high demand.

“This investment marks a significant milestone for us,” said Guah Eng Hock, Founder and CEO. “It not only validates our belief that industrial water treatment in Asia requires region-specific, practical engineering – it also gives us Emerald’s support with curated global access to leading edge technologies to help us be more efficient in our operations and better serve their customers. Their network will also help us to scale up and create real impact across Southeast Asia.”

More on Water & Wastewater at Emerald:

Water & Wastewater

Veralto Commits €20M to Emerald’s New Fund to Accelerate Water Innovation Solutions

The water risk is real – with Eliza Roberts, Microsoft

About Emerald Technology Ventures

Emerald is a globally recognized venture capital firm, founded in 2000, that manages and advises assets of over €1 billion from its offices in Zurich, Toronto and Singapore. The firm invests in start-ups that tackle big challenges in climate change and sustainability, with four current funds, hundreds of venture transactions and five third-party investment mandates, including loan guarantees to over 100 start-ups.

This is Emerald.

Bold Ideas. Bright Future.  www.emerald.vc

CONTACT FOR EMERALD:

info@emerald.vc

About SG Enviro

SG Enviro Pte Ltd is a Singapore based company adopting the latest emerging sustainable environmental technology. The application of Engineering, Procurement and Construction ( EPC ) approach weave our versatile proprietary innovation in advanced oxidation processes for industrial wastewater treatment. This allows us to integrate and tailor our products to meet the clients wastewater concerns whilst reducing our ecological footprint on society.

SG Enviro Website

 

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Frazier Life Sciences Closes Oversubscribed $1.3 Billion Venture Fund

Frazier Life Sciences

Frazier Life Sciences XII, L.P. will focus on creating and investing in pioneering companies developing novel therapeutics

PALO ALTO, Calif. – July 31, 2025 – Frazier Life Sciences (FLS), a longstanding investment firm focused on innovative therapeutics, today announced the closing of Frazier Life Sciences XII, L.P. (FLS XII), with over $1.3 billion in capital commitments. The oversubscribed fund received strong support from both longstanding and new limited partners. Consistent with prior FLS venture funds, FLS XII will primarily invest in company creation and early-stage private biopharmaceutical companies.

“We appreciate the continued support of our limited partners, many of whom have been with us since the launch of our first dedicated venture fund in 2016,” said Patrick Heron, Managing Partner at Frazier Life Sciences. “With FLS XII, we look forward to continuing to work with exceptional entrepreneurs to advance therapeutic programs with the potential to address significant medical needs.”

Frazier Life Sciences has raised over $3.6 billion across five dedicated venture funds since 2016, alongside more than $1.7 billion raised in long-only public funds since 2021.

The FLS team includes seven investment partners and a growing group of over 35 investment professionals, operating professionals, and senior advisors with broad biopharmaceutical experience across therapeutic areas and company stages. The firm takes a hands-on, collaborative approach to company building, leading to 25 new companies launched since 2020. Noteworthy investments include Alpine Immune Sciences (acquired by Vertex), Arcutis Biotherapeutics (NASDAQ: ARQT), Mirum Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: MIRM), NewAmsterdam Pharma (NASDAQ: NAMS), Tarsus Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: TARS), and Amunix Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Sanofi), among others.

About Frazier Life Sciences:

Frazier Life Sciences (FLS) invests globally in private and publicly traded companies that discover, develop, and commercialize innovative biopharmaceuticals. Since 2016, the firm has raised over $5.3 billion including venture funds focusing on company creation and private companies and long-only public funds focused on small and mid-cap public companies. Since 2010, FLS portfolio companies have achieved over 65 FDA-approved therapeutics and completed more than 60 IPOs or strategic acquisitions.

FLS is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, with offices in San Diego, Seattle, and Boston.

For more information about Frazier Life Sciences, please visit frazierls.com and follow us on LinkedIn.

For media inquiries, please contact:
Ailsa Dalgliesh, Ph.D.
Head of Investor Relations
ailsa@frazierls.com

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FloVision grabs $8.7M to transform protein production with AI-powered waste reduction

SOSV

We’re thrilled to announce that FloVision, a startup revolutionizing food production with AI, raised a $8.7 million Series A led by Insight Partners with participation from SOSV’s Ireland Biomanufacturing Fund, Serra Ventures, and Rockstart.

FloVision builds AI-powered tools that combine computer vision hardware and software to help food processors measure yield, monitor quality, and improve labor performance in real time. Their compact sensors attach directly to conveyor belts and workstations, scanning every product that moves through the line. This gives processors unprecedented visibility to detect defects, misgrades, and foreign materials instantly.

Since launching in 2020, FloVision has already processed over 51 million pounds of food and deployed its system in major beef and poultry plants globally, starting with its first corporate customer in Ireland and now expanding across North America, Europe, and Australia. Customers report up to 1.5% more yield, 15x ROI, and significant gains in quality control and staff training, all by reducing waste and enabling faster, data-driven decisions on the production floor.

FloVision was founded by Rian McDonnell and Elise Weimholt, whose combined expertise drives the company’s innovation. McDonnell’s engineering background and upbringing in rural Ireland, where his family worked in beef processing, gave him firsthand insight into protein production challenges:

“I saw firsthand how yield loss and quality inconsistencies impact processors. These experiences shaped my belief that technology could revolutionize an industry that has been slow to innovate,” McDonnell told Tech Business News

With the Series A, FloVision will expand its team of software, hardware, and AI/ML engineers, AI data annotators, and sales representatives in the US and Europe, including Ireland.

At SOSV, we couldn’t be prouder to have supported FloVision from its early days. This funding milestone is not only a win for the team, but a clear signal of the role AI can play in making one of the world’s most essential industries – feeding the world – more efficient, sustainable, and resilient.

FloVision Solutions grabs $8.7M to transform protein production with AI-powered waste reduction

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Reality Defender democ­ra­tizes deepfake detection with public API launch

DCVC
The democ­ra­ti­za­tion of artificial intel­li­gence has been a double-edged sword. While generative AI tools have unleashed unprece­dented creative and produc­tivity possi­bil­i­ties, they’ve also armed bad actors with sophis­ti­cated deception capa­bil­i­ties that were once the exclusive domain of state-sponsored actors and well-funded criminal orga­ni­za­tions. Today, anyone with a smartphone can create convincing deepfakes that can bypass traditional security measures, manipulate financial markets, or destroy reputations in minutes.It’s against this backdrop that Reality Defender​’s latest announce­ment takes on profound signif­i­cance. The company, which has been quietly protecting Fortune 500 companies and government agencies from AI-powered deception, has launched a public developer API and SDK with a free tier offering 50 detections per month. This isn’t just another API launch — it’s a fundamental shift in how we approach digital security in the age of synthetic media. See Fast Company coverage of the news here.

What makes this partic­u­larly compelling is the timing. As deepfake technology becomes increas­ingly accessible and sophis­ti­cated, Reality Defender is essentially betting that the defense against digital deception needs to be just as ubiquitous as the tools that create it. By making enterprise-grade deepfake detection available to any developer with just two lines of code, they’re attempting to build what they call a ​“distributed defense network.”

I caught up with Ben Colman, co-founder and CEO of Reality Defender, to discuss what this API launch means for the broader fight against AI-powered deception and how democ­ra­tizing detection technology could reshape digital trust.

DCVC: What drove the decision to make your enterprise-grade detection technology publicly available?

Colman: We’ve been incredibly successful protecting large enterprises and government agencies, but every success story came with a nagging question: What about everyone else? The reality is that deepfakes don’t discrim­i­nate by company size or budget. A single sophis­ti­cated deepfake can devastate a startup just as easily as it can harm a Fortune 500 company.

We realized that protection can’t be reserved for those with enterprise budgets. When we see deepfakes being used to manipulate local elections, defraud small businesses, or spread disin­for­ma­tion on social platforms, it becomes clear that detection needs to be everywhere — embedded in every app, accessible to every developer, protecting every user.

The API launch represents our commitment to enabling trust in an AI-powered world. We’re not just offering a platform; we’re building the infra­struc­ture for a more trustworthy digital ecosystem.

DCVC: How significant is the threat that individual developers and smaller companies face from deepfakes?

Colman: The threat is already substantial and growing expo­nen­tially. What’s partic­u­larly concerning is that the barrier to entry for creating deepfakes continues to plummet while the sophis­ti­ca­tion increases. We’re seeing attacks that would have required significant technical expertise and resources just two years ago now being executed by individuals with minimal training.

For smaller companies, the impact can be existential. They don’t have the resources to recover from a sophis­ti­cated deepfake attack that damages their reputation or enables fraud. A startup building a trust-based platform, a content creator whose likeness is being used maliciously, or a financial services company dealing with synthetic identity fraud — these orga­ni­za­tions need the same level of protection as our enterprise clients.

The democ­ra­ti­za­tion of creation tools demands a democ­ra­ti­za­tion of detection capa­bil­i­ties. That’s why we made our API production-ready from day one with the same multi-model detection capa­bil­i­ties that protect our largest clients.

DCVC: What’s your vision for this ​“distributed defense network” you’re building?

Colman: Imagine a world where detecting deepfakes is as routine as filtering spam. Where every commu­ni­ca­tion platform, every content management system, every social app has deepfake detection built in by default. Every developer integrating our API becomes part of a global shield against AI deception.

This is about creating ubiquitous protection. Our API introduces context-aware detection that looks beyond just faces — our proprietary techniques analyze entire images holis­ti­cally, marrying multiple types of approaches to catch sophis­ti­cated deepfakes that other systems miss. This makes our detection useful not just for catching imper­son­ations, but many other types of deepfakes in the wild.

The network effect is crucial here. The more developers integrate detection capa­bil­i­ties, the more data points we have to improve our models, and the more resilient the entire ecosystem becomes against emerging threats.

DCVC: How do you see this impacting the broader AI safety landscape?

Colman: This API launch is a step toward making AI safety infra­struc­ture as fundamental as cyber­se­cu­rity infra­struc­ture. Just as we don’t question whether websites should have SSL certifi­cates or whether apps should have authen­ti­ca­tion, we shouldn’t question whether platforms should have deepfake detection.

We’re at an inflection point where the tools to impersonate are evolving daily. The tools to detect must be everywhere and then some. By making detection accessible to any developer, we’re not just protecting individual appli­ca­tions — we’re building the foundation for an AI ecosystem where trust can be verified, not just assumed.

The broader implication is that we’re moving from a world where deepfake detection is a luxury to one where it’s a necessity. Every developer building trust-critical appli­ca­tions — whether that’s a dating app, a financial platform, or a news aggregator — now has access to the same detection capa­bil­i­ties as the largest institutions.

DCVC: What’s next for Reality Defender and the API?

Colman: We’re expanding beyond audio and image detection to video and other modalities in the coming months. But more importantly, we’re focused on making integration even simpler and more powerful. We want to get to a point where adding deepfake detection to an application is as straight­for­ward as adding a payment processor.

We’re also working on industry-specific solutions that leverage the API foundation. Think specialized detection for financial services, media veri­fi­ca­tion for newsrooms, or identity veri­fi­ca­tion for hiring platforms. The API is the foundation, but the appli­ca­tions are limitless.

The ultimate goal is to make deepfake detection invisible to end users while being indis­pens­able to developers. We want to enable a world where digital inter­ac­tions can happen with confidence, where trust isn’t just assumed but verified in real-time.

This API launch is several giant steps forward toward making that reality. The tools to impersonate are evolving daily — now the tools to detect can be everywhere they’re needed.

Ali Tamaseb

Ali Tamaseb is a General Partner at DCVC.

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How lakeFS is versioning the way to enterprise AI innovation

Dell

How lakeFS is versioning the way to enterprise AI innovation

How lakeFS is versioning the way to enterprise AI innovation

In the modern enterprise, vast amounts of data are continually gathered, refined, and then used for an ever-growing number of AI-driven internal and end-customer use cases. Right now, there’s not an organization on the planet that does not endeavor to do this with greater speed, scale and security, and across every data type and format they’ve got.

Long before the “everything better with AI” fervor swept the enterprise, lakeFS co-founders Einat Orr and Oz Katz saw an opportunity to help streamline and ensure data integrity for data science and engineering workflows with a novel, yet proven approach: manage the data like code. “Git for data” was the idea and that served as the basis for the company’s eponymous open-source project.

At the time Orr and Katz kicked off lakeFS, version control was an often used but siloed capability for software development. But as the need for repeatable and reliable data delivery grew, lakeFS’ popularity surged. Now, version control is emerging as a fundamental layer in AI infrastructure. And lakeFS just raised a $20 million funding round from DTC and other investors to help companies train better models and build better applications by focusing on the key ingredient: their multimodal data.

“When you are training AI models, you rely on multimodal data. And organizations that don’t have the right infrastructure to support this will struggle to get AI systems into production,” Einat Orr, who serves as CEO, said. “Everyone is rethinking their data architecture, because they need to navigate a very stormy world. Things are not stable. You want to build an infrastructure that will take you through that, and that serves you as the AI revolution is happening and evolving.”

Tenured engineers, Orr and Katz knew first-hand the struggles of manually recovering lost assets. With lakeFS, data practitioners can easily version control data in a Git-like model. The technology takes the complexity out of managing data regardless of underlying format, across text, video and images. The result for customers like Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, NASA, Amazon and others is much faster time-to-market for new data-intensive use cases.

“Versioning is no longer something that a tool does for someone. It is an organizational infrastructure for the data that anyone who uses data in the organization can enjoy. And that infrastructure needs to support all data types, from all data sources, for the company’s AI needs,” Orr said.

Scale, reproducibility and trust

With lakeFS, at any moment, enterprises can log the state of every asset in any data repository, review past versions, and quickly revert back to prior states.

“That provides reproducibility. Since you can integrate lakeFS with other tools that you are using, you can have a synced reproducibility of your code, your data and your infrastructure,” said Orr.

Users can interact with the data how they want without compromising the original data set. As they make copies from object storage buckets like S3 and build upon those replications, lakeFS logs the assets and creates a lineage for easy auditing. Users can also expose any changes to team members, as well as integrate them back into the source data, ensuring consistency across the data set’s lifecycle.

“Today, there are many issues with people modifying data while others are still using it. A lot of confusion arises because the data is stored in a single location, like a shared folder” said Orr. “But with data versioning, collaboration and communication become much easier.”

And as fresh data comes in, lakeFS automatically blocks assets that don’t meet a certain quality threshold. This builds up over all trust in data domains and highlights the vital role the versioning layer now plays within enterprise infrastructure.

Everyone in an organization is interested in accessing different versions of their data. But when teams are off using their own versioning in their own tools, massive silos become the challenge. A git-for-data approach gives an organization versioning with full lineage and context.

Open technology, better results

‍Like other popular open-source projects before it, lakeFS’ vibrant community helps to quickly turn user feedback into new products and features. For example, with lakeFS Mount, users can quickly move experimental AI systems running on a laptop to a GPU, eliminating time-consuming integration shifts and further accelerating time-to-market.

And in a market besieged by subpar, half-baked AI tools, lakeFS’s open-source roots and the community built around it are powerful customer acquisition tools.

“Open technologies build trust. You know that a lot of people have tried it, you know how it was tested,” Orr shared. “The traction we have seen across our open source users has greatly and positively influenced the lakeFS roadmap. It’s also served as a foundation for strong relationships with customers like Amazon, Arm, Lockheed Martin, and Volvo. The fact that lakeFS is now cemented in enterprise AI tech stacks with customers of this caliber definitely fueled the demand for this round of growth funding.”

lakeFS announced a $20M growth round of funding, triple-digit growth, and the plans to expand its engineering and go-to-market teams.

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