PointGrab Raises $5 Million in Funding to Tackle Building-Automation IoT Device Market

HOD HASHARON, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

PointGrab today announced an investment totaling $5 million from ABB Technology Ventures (Zurich, Switzerland), EcoMachines Ventures (London, UK), and Flex Lab IX (Milpitas, California, USA). Saar Wilf, PointGrab's Chairman and first investor, is also participating in this funding round. Through this investment, PointGrab fuels its expansion into the rapidly growing $30 billion home and building-automation market. By embedding deep learning technology into optical sensing IoT devices, PointGrab products provide detailed information about activity within buildings to effectively support energy-saving, facility management, occupant comfort and safety, as well as business intelligence.

"ABB Technology Ventures (ATV) invests in potential game-changing technologies that demonstrate true differentiation from anything that currently exists," said Dr. Kurt Kaltenegger, Group Vice President, and head of technology at ATV. "PointGrab stands apart on the leading edge of game-changing breakthroughs in making the use of energy, engineering and automation of buildings far more intelligent. ABB's focus is on the next level strategy for the Internet of Things, Services, and People (IoTSP), and PointGrab's technology opens brand new opportunities in the area of commercial and residential building automation leveraging an advanced IoTSP platform."

"With an installed base of more than 27 million consumer electronic devices, PointGrab's ability to scale up speaks volumes to me as an investor," said Dr. Ilian Iliev, founder and CEO of EcoMachines Ventures. The company provides a leading example of successful and scalable hardware/software integration in the growing IoT market, with a hugely scalable business model."

Jeannine Sargent, president of innovation and new ventures at Flex, which includes Flex Lab IX, said, "We are very excited to partner with PointGrab as they continue to support the expansion of smart and connected, intelligent solutions."

"PointGrab integrates its well-established deep learning and object-tracking IP into remote building-automation devices, addressing rapidly growing markets such as HVAC and lighting control, security and access control, and intelligent real-life video analytics. The most aggressive demand for such products comes from energy savings and analytics, and the company's value proposition attracts the interest of leading lighting, building-automation, and energy services vendors in Europe, the US, Japan and China," said PointGrab's chief business officer, Itamar Roth.

About PointGrab, Inc.

PointGrab is a leading machine learning and computer vision company that has applied its superior technology to win over 27,000,000 installations on devices from consumer electronics giants Samsung, Lenovo, Fujitsu, Acer and others. The company, which was founded by Saar Wilf, Haim Perski and Amir Kaplan, is supported by world leading engineering company ABB and sector expert EcoMachines Ventures of London, and applies a joint development and market approach with global leading lighting and engineering companies. www.pointgrab.com

About ABB Technology Ventures

ABB Technology Ventures (ATV) is the corporate venture capital arm of the ABB Group ABB. ABB is a leader in power and automation technologies. Headquartered in Zurich, with offices in Silicon Valley and Connecticut, ATV invests in high-potential, early-stage companies which have technologies of strategic interest to ABB. Investing since 2010, ATV has deployed over $150 million into a wide range of sectors including cyber security, robotics, smart grid, renewable power generation and data center efficiency. Learn more at www.abb.com/ventures.

About EcoMachines Ventures

EcoMachines Ventures is a London-based VC fund that makes seed and follow-on investments in innovative pan-European B2B hardware companies. We foster the development of world-class technology in the Energy, Transport, Circular Economy, Smart City and Industrial High-tech sectors. Working as a strategic partner alongside successful entrepreneurs and corporate partners, we help promising companies for the next stage of their growth. Learn more at www.ecomachinesventures.com.

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