Our Journey with Edge Impulse: From Vision to Acquisition
Coauthored by TX Zhuo and Matt Hersh
Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining
Some of the best relationships in venture capital start unexpectedly. In 2019, we met François Baldassari of Memfault at Y Combinator Demo Day. We were so impressed that we quickly made an offer to invest. But in a competitive round, we found ourselves on the outside looking in. While we didn’t invest in Memfault, we stayed true to our philosophy at Fika Ventures: always be helpful. We continued making introductions, offering support, and staying engaged.
Fast forward six years, and that philosophy paid off in a way we never expected. François introduced us to Zach Shelby and Jan Jongboom in 2019, the visionary minds behind Edge Impulse. That introduction sparked a journey leading to one of the most exciting investments we ever made.
The Founders We Look For: Visionary Pragmatists
From our first conversations with Zach and Jan, we knew they were special and deep subject matter experts within the connected hardware ecosystem. At Fika, we look for founders who not only have a deep understanding of their industry but also the relentless execution skills to build something transformative and Zach and Jan brought exactly that combination. With decades of experience in embedded technology — from Sensinode and Arm to Mozilla and Cloud9 IDE — they had the credibility and technical prowess to execute at scale. But what truly stood out was their ability to build quickly, make thoughtful decisions, and engage deeply throughout our diligence process. Within a short 2 weeks, we knew we had to be part of their journey.
The Edge AI Revolution: Why We Invested
At Fika, we’ve always believed the most defensible moat for any startup is the data it collects and the insights it generates. Edge Impulse fits this thesis perfectly.
Their platform enables developers to bring intelligence to the billions of devices that need to run in real-time at the edge. Historically, 99% of sensor data goes unused due to cost, bandwidth, and power constraints. Edge Impulse’s TinyML technology unlocks the ability to access this data, process it efficiently, and turn it into valuable insights.
With over 10 million device developers and 30 billion microcontrollers shipped annually, the market potential was staggering. We saw a future where Edge Impulse would become the foundational layer for the next generation of smart devices, and we wanted to help make that future vision a reality.
Execution: The Difference Between a Great Idea and a Great Company
Many say that success is 1% vision and 99% execution — and Edge Impulse proved that to be true. Over the years, Zach and Jan built one of the largest developer communities in their space, with over 170,000 active developers and nearly 500,000 ML projects on the platform. They pioneered groundbreaking AI architectures like FOMO-AD for industrial applications and leveraged GenAI to power edge AI engineering, hosting foundational models for data labeling, synthetic data generation, and model distillation.
Along the way, they also were able to forge deep partnerships with some of the largest players in the hardware, silicon and connected cloud industries, including:
- NVIDIA
- Nordic Semiconductor
- STMicroelectronics
- Amazon AWS
Furthermore, their technology powers products that are used by millions of consumers, including:
- Oura Ring (for sleep pattern analysis)
- Chamberlain (for smart garage door automation)
- Polar (for next-level fitness tracking)
Alongside our friends at Acrew (Asad and Mark) and Canaan (Hrach and Rayfe), we were privileged to support Edge Impulse throughout this journey, helping fill key gaps that helped them to scale their vision.
The Best is Yet to Come
Today, we celebrate not just an acquisition, but the realization of years of hard work and execution. This was our first investment out of our second fund, and seeing Edge Impulse reach this milestone so quickly is incredibly rewarding.
Qualcomm’s acquisition marks the beginning of a new chapter. As a global semiconductor giant with over $40 billion in annual revenue and a dominant presence in AI, IoT, and mobile computing, Qualcomm has the team, resources and scale to take Edge Impulse to new heights.
We have a secret hope: that in the near future, we’ll see a “Qualcomm powered by Edge Impulse” sticker on every smart device in our homes and out in the field. The future of edge AI is here, and we’re honored to have played a small role in making it happen.
Thank you, Zach and Jan, for letting us be part of this journey and leading your pre-seed round since that first meeting at Spaces Santa Row in San Jose. And Zach — never lose your fun side. Just maybe swap out the Bird scooters for something a little more in vogue!
