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Since the last time we spoke , Viam did n’t pin precisely , fit in to father and CEO Eliot Horowitz — it ’s more of a “ rebrand . ” or so six month ago , the Manhattan - free-base inauguration made a concert effort to broaden its focus . The development platform previously focused its outreach on robotics business firm . It ’s a big and speedily flesh out class , but Horowitz excuse that the company ’s vision is larger .
“ The platform has always been — and will always be — for a very wide kitchen range of thing , including robotics , including IoT and smart homes , industrial mechanization and all these things that have sensors and actuators and compute , ” the executive tell TechCrunch . “ Some time over the summer , we realized that when we were e-mail or talking to people , when they find out robotics on our homepage , it basically sent them into a tizzy . They were like , ‘ we ’re not a robotics company — we do solid food processing , we do PLC automation , we do boats , we ’re not robots . ’ ”
Further complicating electronic messaging was the fact that — while the ship’s company is simply named “ Viam ” — its various social sensitive platforms are “ Viam Robotics , ” owing to the fact that it was unable to guarantee the four - letter word . The business firm also spent much of its initial outreach sweat focusing on robotics . Viam ’s gravid office overlooking New York City ’s Lincoln Center has a lab space , where member of the local robotics community are invited in to apply its platform to develop automation lotion .
The rebranding included mixing up demos and focusing on new lotion beyond robotics . The list include verticals like insurance and marine — the latter impinge on particularly tight to menage , as he talks to me via Zoom from the nosepiece of his boat . He bring that the company has been on - boarding some large go-ahead organizations , but Viam is not yet at a point where it ’s able to expose name calling .
Certainly interest remains on the investor side . Viam this week announced a $ 45 million Series B , featuring Union Square Ventures and Battery Ventures . The latest bout land the company ’s total financial backing up to $ 87 million . Viam say the financing will go toward R&D and ramp up commercial endeavor deployment . Horowitz tell me that Viam is also actively expanding its 100 - someone headcount .
He let in that the caller may still have something of a message job , however , when it comes to determining a pithy elevator pitch to describe precisely what it is that Viam ’s package does nearly a yr after its commercial launching .
“ I would n’t say we do n’t have the superlative answer , ” he confesses . “ When people ask me what I do and what [ Viam ’s software ] does , I usually expend an example from their aliveness . As an example , has your HVAC ever broken ? How do you find your coffeemaker ? If you know someone for a minute , you have a go at it something in their life where the package / ironware interface is sorry . We are a platform that lives at the intersection of material - world hardware and genuine - world computer software and the cloud and machine learning . There is no affair like us . There is no comparison . ”
