By Max A. Cherney
(Reuters) – Software program and robotics startup Vivid Machines raised $106 million in a Collection C funding spherical that included Nvidia (NASDAQ:) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:) as buyers, the corporate stated on Tuesday.
The San Francisco-based firm makes tools and software program that helps automate a spread of producing duties via the usage of synthetic intelligence and machine studying.
Different buyers within the Collection C funding spherical included enterprise capital agency Eclipse Ventures, robotics maker Jabil and BlackRock (NYSE:). Vivid Machines raised $20 million in debt from J.P. Morgan as properly.
Vivid Machines plans to deploy practically the entire money it raised towards its engineering effort, which is engaged on robotics, laptop imaginative and prescient and different automation issues, CEO Lior Susan stated in an interview.
The money will assist introduce “a sooner and higher model of our platform,” Susan stated.
The corporate’s purpose is to ultimately permit an engineer to design a product inside the Vivid Machines atmosphere and “press a button” to have a robotic system 1000’s of miles away manufacture the thing, Susan stated.
One of many important use circumstances is setting up AI server {hardware} made by the likes of Nvidia. Vivid Machines instruments may help make the manufacturing strategy of the assembled system extra environment friendly, probably shaving off weeks or months from the construct time, by changing guide labor with robots and software program.
“If I can provide Nvidia a month sooner (approach) to introduce a brand new product … it is value – on this AI background – so many billions of {dollars},” Susan stated.
Constructing AI servers is a fast-growing marketplace for Vivid Machines, with the corporate seeing “an insane quantity of demand,” Susan stated.
The corporate’s instruments also can construct a spread of different electronics equivalent to cellphones.
