SY Alum Neuron Soundware Closes €600K Investment from J&T Ventures
We are very pleased to announce that Neuron Soundware, or 2016 Alum, and winner of “Vodafone Idea of the Year 2016” has closed an investment from Prague-based J&T Ventures, of €600,000 to grow their team and expand their sales to capitalize on early traction with clients like Siemens.
The story broke first on Euro.cz this morning.
Congratulations @startupyard alum @NeuronSW on exciting progress, and fundraising €600K to expand operations! Share on XThe Details
Pavel Konecny, Co-founder and CEO of Neuron Soundware, made the announcement today in Mlada Fronta, together with Adam Kocik, Managing Director of J&T Ventures The investment will help Neuron Soundware to beef up its team, refine its technology, and expand its customer reach to include aerospace manufacturers, rail operators, and automotive companies.
Neuron Soundware, founded in 2016, joined StartupYard the same year. There the founding team, a group of AI experts led by Konecny, conceived of a device which can listen to heavy machinery, and over time, learn to recognize mechanical issues and predict when the machinery is likely to fail. Since attending StartupYard, they have developed a device employing high-end sensors used in aerospace, and audio processing software that can be plugged directly into heavy machinery and can warn of future mechanical problems. The company announced a cooperation with Siemens in 2016, and was invited to join the Airbus Innovation Lab the same year.
“We are continually impressed by the Neuron Soundware team’s technical prowess and ability to attack very complex problem sets with novel approaches and technology,” Kocik commented on the investment, “this technology is going to be even more essential as the IoT [Internet of Things] matures. Neuron Soundware will help to make machines safer, more efficient, and longer lasting.” The investment, a cooperation between J&T Ventures and a private investor, will be used to refine the engineering of Neuron Soundware’s physical devices and software, and to support its outreach to large industrial machinery firms, where demand for the technology is already growing.
According to Konecny, the technology, based on “deep neural networks,” learns from the sounds machinery produces, and can detect patterns too faint or complex for a human to hear, diagnosing issues with machinery well before they become catastrophic. Konecny says of the technology: “Sound is a rich source of data, and also quite universal, which is why mechanics and engineers rely on it so much. But a human cannot listen to 100 airplane or diesel engines for 1000 hours each, and make sense of it all. A machine can do this, and when one engine fails, it can apply that learning to all it has already heard, thus greatly enhancing our ability to detect and prevent future problems.”
“When Neuron Soundware joined us for our 6th program [out of 8], their approach to understanding sound had never really been tried before,” commented Cedric Maloux, our CEO, “leveraging StartupYard’s mentor network, locally and abroad, they were able to very quickly prove that there was a huge need for this kind of technology.” The company notes that future applications for machine learning and sound reach beyond machine maintenance, to product testing, autonomous navigation, green energy solutions, and even security. “Sound is everywhere,” remarks Konecny, “and we’ve just started to see how we can use it to understand more of how everything works.”
About Neuron Soundware:
Neuron Soundware is a deep tech startup, exploring the use of self-teaching, constantly learning neural networks in a wide range of audio analysis and audio manipulation applications. Since 2016, Neuron Soundware has focused on technology to monitor and diagnose industrial equipment to predict failures and increase efficiency. They include Siemens and a number of other leading industrial and transportation equipment manufacturers among their clients.
About J&T Ventures:
J&T Ventures is a Venture Capital fund based in Prague. The fund invests up to €500 000 in technology firms at the seed stage in CEE region. Since 2014, J&T Ventures has been invested in 11 growing and promising innovative startups with the goal to contribute to their dynamic growth and value creation. The fund focuses mainly on B2B sector with a particular interest in FinTech, IT (Big Data Analytics), IoT/IoE & Smart City IoT and Retail.
You can now apply for StartupYard Batch #8.
- Robots
- Artificial Intelligence
- VR/AR
- IoT
- Cryptography
- Blockchain
