PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ubiquity Ventures, a new seed-stage institutional venture capital firm founded by Sunil Nagaraj, has made its first six investments in start-ups that exemplify his vision of software leaping off the screen and into the real world.
Ubiquity’s portfolio includes start-ups focused a wide range of industries including agriculture, robotics, security, and artificial intelligence. Each of these companies play to Nagaraj’s passion - software that can have a more direct and tangible impact on our real world lives away from the computer screen.
“I believe the companies in Ubiquity’s portfolio will be life-changing for many people,” said Nagaraj, Founder and Managing Partner of Ubiquity Ventures. “Some of these companies provide solutions to problems that we didn’t know could be solved and the others have created breakthrough software for brand new industries. From apps for dairy farmers seeking less labor-intensive practices for herding and food safety to digital training environments for safer self-driving cars - the technologies provided by these six companies are ahead of the innovation curve and I am thrilled to be helping them grow.”
The first six companies in Ubiquity’s portfolio are:
- Eclypsium: Founded by security veterans, Eclypsium plugs a massive security hole in today’s enterprise as well as the coming wave of smart hardware: unguarded firmware. Their product defends the foundational software called firmware from malicious attacks and thus secures the hardware infrastructure that powers our world.
- Elementary Robotics: Focused on building robust, affordable and human-safe robots, utilizing software breakthroughs in machine learning and computer vision.
- Halter: Halter is a livestock management company that pairs a smart hardware collar with an AI-powered backend to enable smart dairy farm management. Their point-and-click “cowgorithms” can physically control how cows are moved around a farm to enable smart rules for increased milk production and better animal health.
- Levl Technologies: Through their proprietary security technology, Levl prevents the impersonation of wireless transmitters to secure a variety of communications, especially with low-power devices.
- Parallel Domain: With the rise of self-driving vehicles, Parallel Domain enables the testing of self-driving cars through software that creates completely customizable photorealistic maps, dynamic agents and scenario management, as well as layered simulation to train self-driving cars in virtual environments before they are on the road.
- Shoonya: By making Android secure and more practical for enterprise-owned devices, Shoonya is the layer that helps more software applications run in the field more securely and with more peace of mind.
As an entrepreneur himself, Nagaraj is able to take a founder-centric approach to investing by moving as quickly as the CEOs he invests in and providing early capital to high-potential teams. Meanwhile, he prioritizes transparency, coaching, and working closely with the executives in their portfolio to get them to market as soon as possible. Nagaraj has an active board seat on almost all portfolio companies; his Ubiquity Extended Team also provides continued technical and marketing expertise to Ubiquity start-ups.
“Working with the wrong venture capital firm at the start can be a mistake that has repercussions for years,” said Kevin McNamara, founder/CEO of Parallel Domain. “Receiving VC funding is a dream come true, but it’s important to us to get more than a check. One of the reasons why partnering with Ubiquity was the right move for us is due to Sunil and his team’s overall investment in our growth. They don’t just write a check, walk away, and wait for their returns - they are involved in our business and they understand our technology. We really feel like we have a partner in Ubiquity who we can turn to for help whenever we need it and that type of relationship is priceless.”
ABOUT UBIQUITY VENTURES
Ubiquity Ventures is a seed-stage
venture capital firm in Palo Alto, California focused on early-stage
investments in promising deep technology companies. Leveraging almost a
decade of institutional venture capital experience, Sunil Nagaraj leads
Ubiquity Ventures to fund startups pushing software beyond the screen
with a focus on smart hardware and machine intelligence applications.
With an extended team of over 30 experts with technical and marketing
expertise, Ubiquity Ventures aims to deliver superior returns through
providing funding and development assistance to promising companies to
position them for accelerated growth. More at http://www.ubiquity.vc
