Virtual Training for Autonomous Vehicles — Phantasma Labs closes Seed Round
- Berlin-based DeepTech startup Phantasma Labs receives new seed funding: APEX Ventures leads the round, with signals VC, VC Fonds Technologie Berlin managed by IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft and Wi Ventures backing the investment. The existing investor Entrepreneur First has also reinvested in the company.
- Phantasma Labs is the first platform to simulate extreme situations in virtual worlds to scale — such as a pedestrian suddenly running into the road — so that algorithms of autonomous vehicles learn ideal reactions. Data on such rare situations can’t be collected in normal road traffic and become scalable through the platform.
- The founders met in the first Berlin cohort of the talent investor Entrepreneur First and participated in the signals Pre-Seed program, qualifying them for the subsequent investment.
- The new capital will flow into an expansion of the team and product development.
Berlin, September 3, 2020 — Phantasma Labs, the first of its kind simulation platform focusing on enabling Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) understand complex human behaviour has announced a new seed funding round. The software by the Berlin-based startup imitates the behaviour of pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users in large-scale simulations. Based on these virtual scenarios, AV companies train algorithms for different traffic situations in a short time and learn based on the data how to ideally navigate the vehicle in a particular situation. APEX Ventures has signed on as lead investor, with new investors signals VC, VC Fonds Technologie Berlin managed by IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft, and Wi Ventures and several business angels joining the round. The existing investor Entrepreneur First is also reinvesting in Phantasma Labs. New capital will be used to expand the team and develop the product further.
“Autonomous vehicles must collect vast amounts of data on a wide range of traffic scenarios to ensure a safe and smooth ride. Only through this data can they respond safely to all situations.However,most dangeroussituationsarerelativelyrareineverydaytraffic,suchas bicyclists running into a car from a blind spot. Thus it takes a long time to collect the necessary data for these scenarios,” says Ramakrishna Nanjundaiah, co-founder and CEO of Phantasma Labs. “Our simulation platform mimics important human behaviour and extreme scenarios that are difficult to test in the real world in sufficient detail and without endangering people. Our platform greatly accelerates the learning process of the algorithms.”
Currently, AVs drive hundreds of thousands of kilometers in real road traffic to collect data of even one “Edge Case” to train self-learning algorithms. “Edge cases” describe traffic scenarios that occur less frequently in normal road traffic — for example, encountering a swerving e-scooter driver is much less likely than encountering a red traffic light. Collecting and training for these rare cases is time-consuming, expensive and non-scalable. Phantasma Labs combine simulation sciences, high-performance computing , dynamic models of different road users, game engines as well as artificial intelligence to create virtual worlds that generate realistic human behaviour datasets and models. The accuracy and the scale of the resulting platform enables the generation of large amounts of insights on realistic human behaviour in road traffic in a short time.
“By 2030, every tenth vehicle is expected to drive autonomously, and the market for AVs is expected to grow to $13.7 billion. The automotive and software industries need a more effective way to collect road traffic data around Edge cases”, says Saskia Sefranek, Co-Lead and Director at signals. “Phantasma Labs offers a solution to surmount this obstacle and they’ve already convinced car manufacturers of the concept. We got to know the Phantasma Labs team through our three-months signals Founder Fellowship program and were convinced by their strong dedication, deep technical knowledge and unique market insights. Now we are excited to support them further along their growth path and invest alongside established investors and industry experts”.
The founders of Phantasma Labs, Ramakrishna Nanjundaiah (CEO) and Maria Meier (CTO), met in the program of the talent investor Entrepreneur First and are part of the first Berlin cohort from 2018. “Phantasma Labs is an impressive example of the success of our program and our goal to find, bring together and support tech experts and entrepreneurial talent who don’t possess a classic startup CV,” says Philipp Herkelmann, General Manager of Entrepreneur First Germany. “With degrees from the Technical University of Munich and as experienced developers, for example of powerful pedestrian simulations, they were in the perfect position to jointly benefit from their technical and entrepreneurial talent and to further scale Phantasma Labs”.
About Phantasma Labs
Phantasma Labs helps autonomous vehicles (AVs) to understand people better. This innovation is made possible by a simulation platform that develops crucial data sets and models of human behaviour to help train AVs for ideal behaviour in extreme situations. The startup aims to become a game-changer for the industry and to improve autonomous driving in a sustainable way.
About signals Pre-Seed
The signals Pre-Seed Program supports early-stage founders on the road to product-market-fit. signals Pre-Seed provides up to 250k€ in pre-seed funding as well as a 20k€ equity-free Founder Fellowship. The focus is on B2B startups in enterprise and SME tech within the DACH region. signals Pre-Seed is a joint investment program of signals and signals Venture Capital, an independently managed, financially oriented €100 million venture capital fund. The portfolio companies benefit not only from classic venture capital support, but also from the industry-agnostic innovation ecosystem signals, backed by the SIGNAL IDUNA Group, one of the leading German insurance companies. Partnership opportunities with the SIGNAL IDUNA Group can be facilitated through the signals Startup Client. All initiatives are housed at the signals Open Studios in Berlin, an open community space and event venue with coworking facilities for startups.
About Entrepreneur First
Entrepreneur First (EF) is a talent investor, founded in London in 2011 by Matt Clifford and Alice Bentinck to support the world’s most ambitious individuals build globally important companies. EF’s bespoke programme, the first of its kind in the world, invests time and money in outstanding individuals, helping them to find a co-founder, develop an idea and create a high-growth technology company from scratch. To date EF has helped over 2000 individuals
build more than 300 companies, with a total valuation of $2 billion. EF’s companies have been funded by many of the leading venture investors in Europe, Asia and Silicon Valley.
About APEX Ventures
APEX Ventures is a Europe based company builder backing deep-tech ventures with a focus on unique and defendable intellectual property and above average market potential. APEX funds have completed investments in Europe and in the U.S., among others in the fields of A.I. for medical applications, quantum and laser technology, autonomous mobility, computer vision, and digital forensic. APEX Ventures closely supports the founding teams in their go-to-market approaches to help accelerate international growth. To identify talented teams and support their ideas at an early stage, APEX Ventures closely works with academic institutions, entrepreneurship programs and other international VC partners.
About IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft
IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft provides venture capital to innovative Berlin- based companies and has established itself as a market leader in the field of early stage financing in Germany. The funds are used primarily for the development and market launch of innovative products or services, as well as for business concepts of creative industries. Currently two of the funds managed by the IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft are in the investment phase, the VC Fonds Technologie Berlin II with a fund size of 60 million euros and the VC Fonds Kreativwirtschaft Berlin II with a fund size of 40 million euros. Both VC funds are financed by means of the Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB) and the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRE) administered by the State Berlin. Since 1997 the IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft, in consortia with partners, has made 1.52 billion euros available to creative and technology-orientated companies; thereof, the portion invested by IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft itself, as lead, co-lead or co-investor, was approximately 217 million euros.
