Mark Cuban and Richard Parsons invest in drone computer vision startup Percepto
Percepto, an Israeli startup developing hardware and software that drones can use to handle computer vision processes such as obstacle avoidance, is announcing today that it has raised a $1 million seed round from some impressive early-stage investors.
Richard Parsons, the former chief executive of media giant Time Warner, led the funding round. Billionaire Mark Cuban and Chinese angel investor Xu Xiaoping also participated in the round, as did Elevator Fund and Emerge. The new funding comes a few months after Percepto raised more than $100,000 throughan Indiegogo campaign.
At the time, the startup’s message was that any person could attach Percepto’s “little black box” — packing an Nvidia Tegra K1 GPU and a camera — onto a drone and then get the drone to perform cool things thanks to computer vision executed inside the box. Now, though, Percepto is going after commercial uses of its technology.
“I now understand that this is, like, the missing piece in the drone puzzle that does not really exist in the commercial space. It only exists in the military space,” Percepto cofounder and chief executive Dor Abuhasira told VentureBeat in an interview.
「今では、商用スペースに存在しないドローンのパズルでピースが欠けている状態のようだと悟ったのです。あるのは軍事スペースだけです」と、Perceptoの共同設立者兼社長のDor Abuhasira氏はインタビューの中でVentureBeatに対して述べた。
「今理解しているのは、これが商業分野には全く存在しない、なんと言ますか、欠落している部分だということです。存在しているのは、軍事分野においてだけです。」Perceptoの共同設立者で最高責任者のDor Abuhasira氏は、インタビューでVentureBeatに語った。
Of course, some actual drones carry computer vision technology onboard. But Percepto wants to boost the intelligence of the average drone — allowing it to follow and film a car as it moves, or fly ahead of you as you approach it to keep you from walking into it, or do a 360-degree rotation around you as you ride a skateboard in order to capture some especially cool footage.
And there are other drone computer vision startups flying around, including Andreessen Horowitz-backed Skydio, which focuses exclusively on software, and Y Combinator-backed Vertical, whose hardware doesn’t come with a camera.
現実にはAndreessen Horowitzが支援するSkydio(ソフトウェアのみに注力)やY Combinatorが支援するVertical(ハードウェアにカメラが付属しない)など、ドローンのコンピュータビジョン関係のスタートアップは他にもある。
また、他にもAndreessen Horowitzが支援する、ソフトウェアに専念しているSkydioやY Combinatorが支援する、カメラが搭載されていなハードウェアを取り扱うVerticalを始めとするドローンコンピュータービジョンスタートアップが活動している。
But Percepto has a good origin story — Abuhasira and fellow cofounder Raviv Raz realized they should build this sort of technology after they were disappointed by the quality of the drone footage they brought home from a snowboarding trip in Austria. Since then, people have expressed interest in Percepto’s approach and backed the Indiegogo campaign, and Percepto will likely gain appeal among developers when the startup makes its software available for free under an open-source license later this year.
“We were very surprised by the big organizations that approached us to use this kind of system,” Abuhasira said. Such companies can inspect the open-source code, build on it, and then perhaps adopt the full package, including the hardware.
Percepto’s existing software development kit (SDK) can already save companies 70 percent of the time it takes to develop a new application that a drone can run, Abuhasira said. And from there, he said, it can “help us become pretty much the standard platform of commercial side of computer vision with commercial drones.” That’s the goal, anyway.
Percepto started last year and is based in Tel Aviv, Israel. The startup employs seven people. With the new funding, that number should grow to 12 or more within six months.
The startup has more detail on its seed round in a blog post.
Perceptoは昨年創業し、拠点があるのはイスラエルのテルアビブ。このスタートアップの従業員数は7人。新規の資金調達でその数は半年以内で12以上になるとみられる。
The startup has more detail on its seed round in a blog post.
Perceptoの創業は昨年で、イスラエルのテル・アビブを拠点としている。同スタートアップの従業員は、7人だ。新たな資金提供を受け、その数は6か月以内に、12あるいはそれ以上になるはずだ。
同スタートアップのシードラウンドに関する詳細については、ブログ記事を参照して欲しい。
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