SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aira.IO, the leading developer of remote assistance technology that brings greater mobility and independence to the blind and visually impaired, has announced a Series A financing of more than $2.5 million led by Lux Capital and ARCH Venture Partners, along with Felicis Ventures, Larry Bock, Scott Belsky, and several other well-known angel investors.
The Series A round comes on the heels of an $800K Seed financing closed in October 2015. Aira used the initial funding to develop and evaluate its technology and services with 100 blind users during multi-phase Beta Trial testing, during which users found Aira´s product to be a “game changer” in its potential to significantly enhance their efficiency, mobility and self-assurance in daily life.
“I could not be more excited about Aira’s mission to bring intelligent and efficient assistance to millions of Americans,” says Suman Kanuganti, Aira Co-Founder & CEO. “There is a massive market opportunity to bring modern technology to a population that can reap its benefits. We feel fortunate to have leading technology investors like Lux Capital, ARCH Venture Partners and Felicis Ventures, behind us.”
“Lux Capital is proud to support Aira in achieving its ambitious goal of transforming the lives of the estimated 20 million blind or visually impaired in the U.S.,” says Josh Wolfe, Co-founder & Managing Partner of Lux Capital, who joined Aira’s Board of Directors as part of the Series A financing. “It quite literally is a vision for vision, empowerment, and unlocking potential.”
Learn more about Aira: https://vimeo.com/138930677
About Aira.IO:
Aira.IO is a remote assistance technology platform that is designed to help blind and low-vision users gain greater independence in a wide range of daily activities ranging from navigating city streets, to recognizing faces in a crowd, workplace assistance and literally traveling the world. The blind, wearing smart glasses, are connected with a network certified Agents, plus family and friends, similar to Uber routing. Agents use a real-time interactive cloud-based ¨Mission Control¨ style dashboard purposely built to provide an augmented reality context of remote user by processing of live data streams from cameras, GPS, and other sensor systems from wearable platforms such as Google Glass and Vuzix. Visit http://www.aira.io for more information.
About Lux Capital
Lux Capital is a venture firm based in New York City and Silicon Valley investing in counter-conventional, seed and early stage science and technology ventures. With a special focus on big breakthroughs, passionate entrepreneurs, transformative technologies, and massive markets, Lux manages $700 million in assets across four funds.
About ARCH Venture Partners
ARCH Venture Partners is a premier provider of seed and early stage venture capital for technology firms, with a special competence in co-founding and building firms from start-up. Its mission is to deliver promising technologies from the earliest stages to successful commercial application – from concept to commerce. With a 30 year history and $2 billion in capital under management, ARCH is among the largest providers of seed and early stage capital in the U.S.
About Felicis Ventures
Felicis Ventures, with offices in the U.S. and internationally, is a venture capital firm specializing in angel investments, incubation, seed and startup, early stage, and later financing. It focuses on the areas of mobile, e-commerce, enterprise, education and health – and on new groundbreaking technologies, such as 3D imaging, bioinformatics, and connected devices.