Construct Capital
Assembly Line
How Advex creates synthetic data to improve machine vision for manufacturers
Advex’s formal launch at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 has already secured a handful of customers through its stealth phase. This includes what it calls “seven major” enterprise clients, which it says it’s not at liberty to disclose. TechCrunch can also reveal that the San Francisco-based startup has raised $3.6 million in funding, the bulk of which came via a $3.1 million seed tranche last December, with notable backers including Construct Capital, Pear VC, and Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective.
Potential customers include legacy developers of machine vision systems, along the lines of Cognex or Keyence, which are striving to bolster their products with better AI. But on the other side, Advex might sell directly to the end-user businesses, such as car manufacturers or logistics companies building their own in-house tooling. But the real secret sauce is in the company’s proprietary diffusion model, similar to something like Midjourney or Dall-E, and is what’s used to create the synthetic data. “That one is custom, and is highly complicated — that’s where we put all of our effort,” Pachuca added.
Monaire raises $3.5M to help small commercial buildings transition to sustainable heating and cooling using AI
Monaire, a startup that uses AI to curb waste and emissions from small commercial buildings, announced $3.5 million in seed funding. Construct Capital led the round with participation from Workshop Ventures, as well as strategic individual investments from Steve Fredette, the president and co-founder of Toast, and Tom Kuo, co-founder of A-Street and chairman of the board at Mighty Earth.
Monaire’s predictive maintenance and energy management platform automatically detects, diagnoses, and services HVAC and refrigeration (HVAC/R) systems in small commercial buildings. Using a network of wireless sensors, Monaire’s AI-enabled software continually monitors performance in a building’s HVAC/R systems, automatically preventing energy waste, and detecting problems. When issues are detected, Monaire immediately diagnoses the problem and automatically dispatches an available technician to make repairs.