Founders of Emesent - Dr Stefan Hrabar and Farid Kendoul in 2016 -- met Mike Zimmerman - -- when they were part of the CSIRO ON program. Mikes fund Main Sequence Ventures invested 2 years later together with Archangel Ventures.
“Over these last 6 years, they have just kept their heads down and quietly become world leaders in industrial automation and analytics - with a 130-strong (and growing) team “
VCs , Perennial Partners, Tiger Global Management and TELUS have bow lobbed in $32m to help with their growth - giving them a nice warchest to invest to ramp up !
In the last year, revenue has increased 2.5X….
This is a major win after a decade of research from CSIRO’s Robotics and Autonomous Systems Group within Data61.
So what does it actually do?
Emesent has created mapping technology that attaches to a drone , vehicle or even a backpack - it collects data in underground and hard to reach locations, even when GPS is not reliable.
It is used to create 3D maps, record gas readings and take images or videos.
In a nutshell you can now collect high-quality data that was previously impossible to acquire - from a safe distance
Dr Steven Hrabar explains to Tech Journalist Yolanda Redrup of the Australian Financial Review .
Dr Steven Hrabar explains to Tech Journalist Yolanda Redrup of the Australian Financial Review .
“ We see ourselves as a key enabler for the digital mine of the future and other industries with the challenge of asset management.” says Stefan
“We launched our core product Hovermap in 2016... and it’s now able to fly a drone fully autonomously beyond line of sight and communication range, all by using a tablet,” Dr Hrabar said.
“You give it an idea of where you want it to reach, and then it self-explores and navigates on its own, capturing a detailed 3D LiDAR [light detection and ranging] point cloud.”
LiDAR point clouds are a collection of points created using the LiDAR technology, useful for storing large amounts of data.
“We’re building out our data analytics capability to do autonomous insights,” Dr Hrabar said.
International Validation
Last year, the company, which teamed up with its original team from CSIRO and also the Georgia Institute of Technology, placed second in the “robotics Olympics” – a competition run over a three-year period by US government research agency DARPA.Teams were tasked with remotely operating robots in a subterranean environment that simulated a real-world scenario, including locating models of lost or injured humans, backpacks, and phones, as well as variable conditions such as pockets of gas.
Who are Emesent’s customers?
Organisations in mining, architecture, engineering and construction industries.
They now have over 300 customers in over 40 countries including BHP, Glencore and Anglo American!
What will the finding be used for?
The fresh funding, he says, will be used to establish a sales team in Denver, open an office in the UK, double its engineering team, and build a new manufacturing, calibration and testing facility in Brisbane.
Who is Tiger Global Management VC
Emesent is added to Tiger’s growing growing portfolio of Australian Innovation from its $10b private equity fund.
Tiger Global, founded in 2001 and with $US84 billion in assets, is one of the offshoots started by one of hedge fund titan Julian Robertson’s “Cubs”- Chase Coleman
It’s biggest home run so far has been JD.com where it made $US6.6 billion. It still has active stakes in Flipkart and Robolox, where it expects to make $US3.3 billion each.
Its biggest loser, is listed Danke Apartment with a $US344 million loss, in the presentation.
- Dany Milham’s Milkrun,
- Afterpay
- Atlassian
- GO1
- Bruce Buchanan’s Rokt,
- online wholesale marketplace TradeSquare,
- software start-up Assignar and
- Mr Yum
- Assignar - that’s also backed by Leigh Jasper and Our Innovation Fund
- Shipping
- Safetculture
- Scalapay
- Stakeshop - $2 brokerage
- Stake - $40m raise
No comments:
Post a Comment