Cogniac Raises $20 Million in Series B1 Financing to Drive Global Expansion

Funds to support the operational expansion of tech and leadership teams, EMEA and APAC regions

National Grid Partners, the venture investment arm of National Grid plc (NYSE: NGG), leads round, with participation from Cisco Investments

SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 27, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Cogniac Corporation (“Cogniac” or “the Company”), a San Jose, California-based provider of enterprise-class Artificial Intelligence (AI) image and video analysis, today announced it has completed a $20 million Series B1 financing round.

Cogniac’s AI vision platform operates effectively at enterprise scale for many major brands, including Trimac Transportation and Doosan Bobcat North America. The company is fostering the adoption of AI vision through its no-code cloud platform, which seeks to drive efficiency for organizations that rely on rote, high-volume tasks well-suited for AI use.

The financing was led by National Grid Partners, the venture investment and innovation arm of National Grid, with participation from Autotech Ventures, Cisco Investments, Energy Innovation Capital, London Technology Club, Vanedge Capital, and Wing Venture Capital. The proceeds will primarily fund the expansion of the leadership team, technical and product engineering, and the build-out of infrastructure for the regional sales and engineering teams in Europe, the Middle East, Africa (EMEA), and Asia-Pacific (APAC) regions. Cogniac will also ramp up R&D efforts to strengthen and solidify its unique and innovative approach to AI vision implementation, data storage, and human-AI interactivity.

“We’re at a key inflection point for AI vision adoption in the industrial and manufacturing sectors,” said Chuck Myers, CEO of Cogniac. “Our product’s efficacy and ease of implementation offer our customers significant and material improvement to their workstreams and processes. This funding allows us to scale our operations to meet the needs of this currently nascent but massively important and growing space. AI vision will serve as the foundation of safety and efficiency for the future of logistics and manufacturing, and we’re leading the creation of that infrastructure and operation standard.”

“Cogniac aligns well with our growing portfolio of innovative technology companies that are transforming fundamental industrial operations,” said Lisa Lambert, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at National Grid and founder and president of National Grid Partners. “We seek to amplify leaders with tenacious visions, those disrupting the status quo and creating a sustainable, renewable, and smarter future. We’re excited about Cogniac’s technology and its potential to drive the broad adoption of AI to create safer, more efficient manufacturing and logistics.”

Andre Turenne, vice president, Pathfinding & Incubation Investments at National Grid Partners, will join the Cogniac board.

“Cisco Investments is excited to support Cogniac in their growth journey to provide advanced AI capabilities to customers,” said Amit Chaturvedy, senior director, Corporate Development and Cisco Investments. “We are seeing a broad set of users looking to deploy massive data sets and customizable AI models to drive efficiency and resiliency of critical business processes. Cogniac’s strong value proposition for these users aligns well with Cisco’s focus on digital transformation of businesses.” 

About Cogniac Corporation

Cogniac offers the most advanced enterprise Visual Intelligence Platform. Cogniac enables businesses to realize superhuman levels of accuracy and efficiency in complex environments, from manufacturing to industrial, government to marine. Cogniac’s technology maximizes the value of the newest and most abundant form of data – visual data. By deploying Convolutional Neural Networks and Hyper Parameter Optimization, Cogniac’s platform achieves process performance optimization with very little technical knowledge required from human subject matter experts. For more information, visit Cogniac.ai.

About National Grid Partners

National Grid Partners (NGP) is the venture investment and innovation arm of National Grid plc., one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the world. NGP invests for strategic and financial impact and leads companywide disruptive innovation efforts. The organization provides a multi-functional approach to building startups, including innovation (new business creation), incubation, corporate venture capital, business development and venture acceleration. NGP is headquartered in Silicon Valley and has offices in Boston, London, and New York. Visit ngpartners.com or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Cogniac Press Contact:
Catherine Adcock
Gateway Group
catherine@gatewayir.com
+1 (949) 574-3860