TEL AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DeepCube, the award-winning deep learning pioneer, today announced that it has closed $7 million in Series A funding. The round, led by Canadian VC Awz Ventures with participation from Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT) and Nima Capital, brings the total invested in DeepCube to $12 million. The funding will enable DeepCube to advance, productize, and expand the footprint of its patented software-based inference accelerator in new markets, while fueling additional research, commercialization, and growth of the DeepCube team in its offices in Tel Aviv and the US.
DeepCube’s Series A funding follows the launch of its industry-first, software-based inference accelerator: the only technology that allows efficient deployment of AI models on intelligent edge devices. Until now, deep learning deployments have remained limited due to the size and speed of neural networks, and the need for specialized hardware, resulting in significant cost, memory, and computing requirements. DeepCube’s proprietary framework can be deployed on top of any existing hardware (CPU, GPU, ASIC) in both datacenters and edge devices, enabling over 10x speed improvement and memory reduction. This delivers the most advanced form of deep learning to edge devices, which has previously been unattainable at scale.
“Deep learning has accelerated in recent years. However, the ability to deploy and scale deep learning on edge devices, with a light footprint and efficient memory and processing power, is a significant challenge that has hindered adoption,” said Yaron Ashkenazi, Founder and Managing Partner, Awz Ventures. “DeepCube is the only company that has been able to demonstrate the necessary paradigm shift to change this. DeepCube’s technology has the power to unlock truly autonomous decision making in semiconductors, datacenters, and on edge devices, while improving speed and memory reductions. This is absolutely critical to the future of deep learning, and because of this, we are confident that the company will be a critical driver of the future of AI and deep learning.”
“Enabling deep learning on edge devices will drive innovation across countless sectors, allowing us to realize new, critical capabilities in applications such as autonomous cars, agricultural machines, drones, and even medical diagnostic tools,” said Eli Groner, Managing Director, KDT. “But none of that will be possible without significant technical advancements at the neural network level. That is why we are so impressed with DeepCube’s approach, and with the company’s unique ability to take the vision and theoretical promise of AI and convert that to reality.”
DeepCube’s innovative approach and technology have recently gained recognition in industry awards programs. DeepCube won a Silver Stevie Award for “Tech Startup of the Year – Software” in the 2020 International Business Awards, was selected as the “Best Deep Learning Company” in the 2020 AI Breakthrough Awards, and was a winner in the 2020 AI Excellence Awards.
“DeepCube is proud to be at the helm of innovation in AI and deep learning, allowing for efficient and cost-effective implementation of the most advanced neural networks on edge devices,” said Dr. Eli David, Co-Founder, DeepCube. “We are grateful for our investors’ vote of confidence in DeepCube and for their belief in our vision. With the new funding, we can deliver on the promise of deep learning to customers in new markets – having an impact not only on their businesses, but also, on the deep learning industry at large – far beyond what’s previously been possible.”
About DeepCube
DeepCube is an award-winning deep learning pioneer that provides the industry’s first software-based inference accelerator to drastically improve deep learning performance on existing hardware. Modeled after the way the human brain develops during childhood, DeepCube’s patented technology is the first to be purpose-built for deployment of deep learning models on data centers and intelligent edge devices. Its proprietary framework can be deployed on top of any existing hardware, resulting in drastic speed improvement and memory reduction.
Led by a team of experienced deep learning researchers and developers, DeepCube has patented numerous innovations, including methods for faster and more accurate training of deep learning models, and drastically improved inference performance.
For more information on DeepCube, visit www.deepcube.com.
About Awz Ventures
Established in 2016 by Managing Partner, Yaron Ashkenazi, a former Israel Security Agency (ISA) officer, Awz is a Canadian hub for investment in cyber security, intelligence and physical security AI-based technologies from Israel, a global leader in these sectors. Awz manages US $130M between its first two venture capital funds, having made early stage investments in 17 companies to date. Awz recently launched its $250M Series B and C Growth Fund.
Alongside Mr. Ashkenazi, Awz is led by Advisory Committee President, the Rt. Hon. Stephen J. Harper, the 22nd Prime Minister of Canada, and Founder & Board Chair, Mr. Ed Sonshine. Awz management and advisors also include former directors and senior executives from Israeli and global security & intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, MI5, Mossad, ISA, CSIS, CAF), and global business and venture capital experts.
For more information on Awz Ventures, visit awzventures.com.
About Koch Disruptive Technologies
Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT) is a unique investment firm, focused on empowering founders to create a could-be world. KDT provides a flexible, multi-stage investment approach which includes both traditional venture and growth stages. We work with principled entrepreneurs who are building transformative companies, disrupting the status quo, and creating new platforms. KDT is a subsidiary of Koch Industries, one of the largest privately held companies in the world with $110 billion in revenue and operating in more than 70 countries. KDT helps its partners unlock their full potential by bringing Koch’s capabilities and network to them, structuring unique capital solutions, and embracing a long-term, mutual benefit mindset. More information is available at kochdisrupt.com.
