Index Ventures
Canvas Category Consultancy : Company : Venture Capital
Index Ventures partners with exceptional entrepreneurs – those with unique insight who are intrinsically driven to make their vision a reality. We help them turn their bold ideas into global businesses, and through the companies they build, have a long-lasting and positive impact on the world around us. Index-backed businesses are supported by an experienced team of investors, strategists, and an extensive global network built over three decades of startup investing. Working side-by-side through the scale up journey, we forge deep and long-lasting relationships with founders and their teams. The vast majority of these partnerships begin early in the company’s life, at Seed and Series A, and extend to IPO and beyond. Operating as one team, with feet firmly on both sides of the Atlantic – from London to Tel Aviv, and San Francisco to New York – we are an international team with a global mindset, with experience supporting founders wherever they emerge. When they succeed, they generate returns that in turn support Index’s investors, including non-profit foundations; education, healthcare and research endowments; and other impact-driven organizations.
Assembly Line
Phaidra Raises $12 Million to Help Data Centers Increase Compute Infrastructure
Phaidra, an AI-based control system that helps mission-critical facilities like data centers improve energy efficiency and increase compute infrastructure, announced $12 million in new funding led by Index Ventures, bringing their total capital raised to $60.5 million. The new funding will allow Phaidra to accelerate expansion of its autonomous control systems, which use reinforcement learning to help data centers optimize their power usage while improving reliability. The announcement comes at a time when rapid AI innovation relies on scaling compute. This, combined with a shortage of power and skilled labor needed to support mission-critical facilities like data centers, is contributing to a global crisis where AI innovation is constrained by a lack of compute infrastructure.
Phaidra’s AI control platform turns industrial facilities into intelligent, self-learning systems that combine the precision of manual methods with the scalability and efficiency offered by AI. It seamlessly integrates into existing building management systems to capture real-time data, feed that data into its cloud-based reinforcement learning agent, and autonomously alter the settings on the individual components to achieve optimal performance of the entire system. And unlike traditional control systems, which slowly degrade and require regular manual programming updates, Phaidra automatically learns and gets better over time. Phaidra’s early customers have seen efficiency improvements amounting to millions of dollars in cost savings, which translates to increased power availability for revenue-generating services.
EthonAI raises $16.5M for Manufacturing AI
EthonAI announced that it has raised CHF 15 million ($16.5 million) in a Series A round of funding led by Index Ventures, with participation from General Catalyst, Earlybird and Founderful.
Founded out of Zurich in 2021 by CEO Julian Senoner and CTO Bernhard Kratzwald, EthonAI can train AI models for specific use cases, for instance in electronics manufacturing where the customer supplies imagery of defect-free products and EthonAI’s Inspector software can then identify surface defects in the products during the manufacturing and assembly process.
Tacto secures €50m to tackle disruptions and bureaucracy in industrial supply chains
Tacto’s €50 million investment led by Index and Sequoia will be used to speed up product development and invest significantly in AI. Going forward, Tacto says it aims to expand its active community by building on its strong customer base and equipping Europe’s industrial ‘Mittelstand’ with technology to meet today’s supply chain challenges while preparing for tomorrow.
Tacto is providing a solution to procurement through its central supply chain operating system that manages supplier relations for mid-sized industrial organizations. The AI-based software streamlines all procurement workflows, effortlessly ensuring compliant and sustainable supply chains, along with enabling efficient material sourcing.
Albert Invent Raises $7.5 Million Seed, Led by Index Ventures, to Bring New Products to Market Faster Than Ever Before
Albert Invent, the company empowering global organizations to accelerate innovation with its state-of-the-art R&D platform, today announced $7.5 million in seed funding. Index Ventures led the investment in Albert Invent, whose platform is already helping thousands of scientists worldwide dramatically expedite time to market. Homebrew, F-Prime Capital and prominent angel investors also participated in the round. With the additional financial resources, the company will onboard even more chemistry and materials science companies, helping one of the largest industries in the world develop the products that touch consumers’ everyday lives. Albert is already utilized by some of the largest and prominent companies, along with emerging startups, around the world, including Henkel, the world’s leading producer of adhesives, sealants and functional coatings; 3D Systems, one of the largest 3D printing technology companies; and Applied Molecules, fast growing manufacturer of formulated coatings and adhesives.
Covariant raises $75M for its AI-powered warehouse robots
Covariant, a startup developing warehouse robots that can be deployed faster than traditional automation hardware, has raised $75 million in funding. The company disclosed the investment today. The capital was provided as an extension to a Series C round that it had originally announced in 2021. Radical Ventures and Index Ventures co-led the new investment, while five other institutional backers contributed as well.