Innovation Endeavors
Canvas Category Consultancy : Company : Venture Capital
Innovation Endeavors is an early‑stage venture firm investing in the Super Evolution — a non‑linear approach to innovation that drives generational change in order to solve problems that matter.
Assembly Line
Parspec Announces $11.5M Seed Funding led by Innovation Endeavors, bringing the power of AI to construction product procurement
Parspec, an AI-powered software platform that streamlines the selection and sale of construction products, announced its oversubscribed $11.5 million seed round. Innovation Endeavors led the investment, with participation from Building Ventures, Heartland Ventures, and Hometeam Ventures. Two investors joined the board in connection with the investment: Innovation Endeavors’ Josh Rapperport as a board member and Building Ventures’ Allen Preger as a board observer.
Founded in 2021, Parspec is transforming the $1.7 trillion global construction materials market by providing better information and online workflows to support the procurement process. Parspec’s CEO and co-founder Forest Flager, who earned his Ph.D. at Stanford and previously led software at Katerra, explains the problem and solution as follows: “To select products today, practitioners typically compare design specifications to technical product documentation hosted on thousands of manufacturer websites. It is a time consuming and error-prone process that contributes to procurement costs (in construction) that are nearly double comparable industries. Parspec uses AI to instantly identify spec-compliant products and associated documents, reducing labor by more than 50% compared to manual methods while improving compliance.”
Parspec is initially focused on serving sales agencies and distributors of lighting and electrical products. The company is currently working with three of the top ten lighting agencies and four of the five largest electrical distributors in the United States, including Sonepar, Graybar, Rexel and CED.
Skylo Technologies Raises $37 Million From Intel Capital, Innovation Endeavors, BMW i Ventures, Samsung Catalyst, Next47 & Seraphim Space
Skylo Technologies, the leading direct-to-device satellite connectivity service provider, today announces that it has secured $37 million in funding co-led by Intel Capital and Innovation Endeavors. New investors include BMW i Ventures, Next47, Samsung Catalyst Fund, and Seraphim Space. David Johnson of Intel Capital joins the board, bringing a wealth of experience and insight to fortify Skylo’s leadership team.
This new investment expands Skylo’s scale and business operations to better support smartphones, wearables, IoT devices, and mobile network operator customers. This is a major step in Skylo’s commitment to making standards based non-terrestrial networks (NTN) more accessible and efficient for numerous sectors, including consumer, automotive, agriculture, energy, transportation, and beyond.
Machina Labs Secures $32 Million in Series B Investment to Revolutionize AI-Driven Manufacturing
Machina Labs, which combines AI and robotics to rapidly manufacture advanced composite and metal products, announced that it has closed a Series B investment in the amount of $32 million. The round was co-led by new investor NVentures, NVIDIA’s venture capital arm, and existing investor Innovation Endeavors, with contributions from existing and other new investors. This latest funding brings the total raised by Machina Labs to $45 million.
The investment will be used to meet accelerating customer demand, to further intensify research initiatives, and to continue delivering innovative solutions that exceed customer expectations. Robotic sheet forming is the first process enabled by Machina’s patented manufacturing platform. Using material- and geometry-agnostic technology, the platform outperforms traditional sheet forming methods that rely on custom molds or dies.
Mining technology startup Plotlogic Announces $18M Series A
Deep-tech mining startup Plotlogic, whose mission is to improve mining to make it more sustainable, today announced it has raised an $18 million Series A led by Innovation Endeavors. The round included participation from DCVC, which led Plotlogic’s Seed round. Baidu Ventures and GRIDS Capital reinvested, and new investor Bentley iTwin Ventures also participated. The company plans to use the capital to invest in additional research and development, bolster commercialization, and support Plotlogic’s proprietary OreSense® Technology.
Plotlogic’s first commercial product combines LiDAR, hyperspectral imaging technology and advanced machine learning algorithms to produce real time ore characterization and enhance environmental performance.
Citrine Informatics Raises $16M in Series C Financing
Citrine Informatics, the leading provider of artificial intelligence software for materials, chemicals, and manufactured product development, announced the successful close of a $16 million Series C funding round. The round was led by Prelude Ventures and Innovation Endeavors, with participation from Drive Catalyst (Far Eastern Group), Alumni Ventures, ISAI Cap Venture, Presidio Ventures, and others.
This latest round of funding will be used to further accelerate the growth and development of Citrine’s AI-driven materials and chemical design platform, which is already in use by leading companies across materials, chemicals, formulated products, and manufacturing industries to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their product development processes.
Machina Labs Exits from Stealth with Series A, Bringing Total Raised to $16.3 Million
Machina Labs, a pioneer in advanced manufacturing through robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), today emerged from stealth and announced it has closed a Series A round of financing, bringing the total raised to $16.3 million. Innovation Endeavors led the round with participation from Congruent Ventures and Embark Ventures. The funds will be used to significantly grow Machina’s team in Los Angeles and to expand its R&D and manufacturing capacity to meet rapidly increasing customer demand.
“Manufacturing must be reinvented to keep up with the pace of change in this highly competitive market,” said Edward Mehr, Machina Labs CEO and co-founder. “We’re excited to finally reveal Machina Labs’ manufacturing platform, which combines the latest advances in robotics and AI to democratize access to rapid manufacturing so that anyone with a great idea can manufacture parts quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively. These software-defined, robotic facilities are the factories of the future, and we’re thrilled to have our investors on board to help us get there.”
Citrine Informatics Raises $20M in Series B Funding
Citrine Informatics, the developer of the first materials artificial intelligence (AI) operating platform, announced $20M in Series B funding. The round was co-led by Prelude Ventures and Innovation Endeavors with participation from Moore Strategic Ventures, Next47, and other investors. The financing will help support commercial growth of the Citrine Platform, the company’s core product, as well as the expansion in business development and sales efforts in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
The technological innovation behind the Citrine Platform dramatically reduces the time and cost of materials and chemicals development by combining materials-specific data handling and storage, scalable compute for AI and data processing, along with modular composable AI units optimized to predict materials behavior. The Citrine Platform has helped some of the world’s largest organizations, including chemicals and product companies, hit overall R&D milestones in 50-70% percent of the time originally forecast and has enabled totally new materials product lines.
Citrine Informatics Raises $7.6M to Revolutionize Materials-Driven Product Development With AI
Citrine Informatics, the chemicals and materials artificial intelligence (AI) platform, announced it has closed a $7.6 million Series A led by Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, DCVC (Data Collective), and Prelude Ventures. Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures and XSeed Capital also joined the round. Citrine combines AI with the world’s largest materials database to help bring products to market faster. The company will use the funding to accelerate its early successes with Fortune 1000 customers.
Factories are getting smarter, yet the chemicals and alloys that produce cutting-edge products remain largely unchanged. The consequence of this mismatch is painful delay and cost to manufacturers. According to the National Academy of Sciences, new products can take two decades or more to go from initial design to market, with the intermediate step of developing new materials often taking the longest. Citrine dramatically reduces the time and cost of this process by providing a data-driven approach to predict and optimize materials behavior.