Highlight of Q4 Investments Part 1
Since its launch in 1999, IW has supported more than 729 companies with investments totaling over $117 million. Innovation Works makes direct investments into southwest Pennsylvania’s promising, early-stage technology companies that are focused on high-opportunity markets.
This past quarter (April-June, 2022) our team was busy meeting with our growing portfolio of companies. Let’s take a moment to highlight some of them in this two-part blog series.
AdSkate transforms digital advertising by applying artificial intelligence (AI) to determine the relevance of content for a brand or campaign, eliminating unrelated or damaging ad delivery.
Why we’re excited about AdSkate: They are at the forefront of a massive shift in the online advertising space. Their unique approach to identifying ideal advertising properties based on context gives brands new tools to make sure their ads target the most likely customers, without using cookies.
Arieca is an advanced materials start-up that is pushing the boundaries of materials functionalities in the most demanding applications. Our proprietary liquid metal embedded elastomer (LMEE) technologies allow for unprecedented performances in applications across semiconductor, aerospace, automotive, and healthcare industries.
Why we’re excited about Arieca: They have all of the elements for large and sustained growth — a truly unique technology; a massive, mature and growing market in semiconductors; strong partnerships with well-established industry leaders.
ARIN Technologies offers a high-value solution to companies that require accurate placement and movement data of products, equipment and people in indoor environments in which GPS is ineffective.
Why we’re excited about ARIN Technologies: ARIN is helping to transform location awareness and safety in traditional facilities such as logistics warehousing. Accurate locations are a key requirement for robotic-equipped facilities which are increasingly common. .
BlastPoint creates entirely new markets for data by bringing together unlimited datasets, varied in content and structure, into one complete picture through the perspective of location.
Why we’re excited about BlastPoint: They continue to show strong growth as their solution continues to resonate with organizations in highly-regulated industries that are looking to derive customer insights from their internal data.
CapSen Robotics achieves state-of-the-art results on one of the most pressing problems in robotics and 3D computer vision — correctly identifying and locating specific objects in clutter. This breakthrough makes it possible to provide a general computer vision solution for manufacturing applications such as bin picking as well as warehouse automation tasks such as order fulfillment or inventory management. There long-term goal is to provide a universal 3D computer vision system that enables the robots of the future to see and understand the physical world.
Why we’re excited about CapSen Robotics: We have seen a significant, and likely permanent, change in order fulfillment. As warehousing requires increasingly complex orders to be filled, Capsen’s solutions become more valuable.
Finish Robotics’ mission is to solve the labor crisis on the construction job site through job-specific mobile robots.
Why we’re excited about Finish Robotics: With massive labor shortages in the construction industry, Finish has taken an intelligent approach by automating highly repetitive processes. This will supplement existing workers and allow them them to focus on higher value added tasks. It’s a great example of how robotics doesn’t take away jobs, but enhances them. .
Honeycomb Credit is the community bank for the 21st Century. Their platform allows locally-owned small businesses to borrow expansion loans from their own loyal customers and community members. With Honeycomb, Main Street businesses get the capital they need to grow and thrive while community members can invest in local businesses that they know and love while earning competitive returns.
Why we’re excited about Honeycomb Credit: Honeycomb continues to show strong growth as they gain a foothold in more and more markets. The company has become a leader in the crowdfunding space, and impact remains at the center of what they do — a majority of their funding campaigns originate from LMI communities and are led by women or minority owned business owners.
Lumis is a cutting-edge technology company that aims to disrupt the traditional clinical and healthcare training experience by making it more immersive, accessible, and efficient. Their augmented reality and data-driven InSight Platform provides training across the healthcare education spectrum to ensure that the same quality of training can be received by anyone, at any time, and anywhere.
Why we’re excited about Lumis: As the saying goes, “practice makes perfect,” but realistic training for clinicians and other healthcare workers is difficult to achieve. Lumis’s technology provides expanded access to realistic training environments enabling clinicians to train and receive customized feedback. This technology is already deployed at major medical centers and we’re excited to watch their growth!
Maroon Assistive Technologies, Inc.
Take the weight off workers’ backs. Hiring and retaining workers is more difficult than ever, and rising healthcare costs have put a great focus on employee health. Our exoskeleton improves employee well-being by making bending and lifting tasks easier. The innovative technology reduces back strain & fatigue and the risk of work-related back injuries.
Why we’re excited about Maroon Assistive Technologies: For years workers have suffered through back strain injury and fatigue which has a detrimental impact on their health and company productivity. Their elegant design is lower cost than many solutions and benefits both companies and their employees.
