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Roboflow raises $20 million Series A to continue democratizing computer vision

September 16, 2021

Des Moines computer vision company Roboflow announced today that it has raised a $20 million Series A led by Craft Ventures. Additional investors named include Lachy Groom, Jack Altman, DJ Patil, Max and Sam Altman, Cassidy Williams, Harry Hurst, Greg Brockman and Mike Maples.

“Computer vision is one of those foundational technologies that – like the personal computer and smartphone – will transform every industry,” wrote Roboflow CEO Joseph Nelson in a blog post announcing the raise. “Software is limited by its ability to receive structured information from the world as input, and that structure is traditionally interpreted from the environment via a human brain. Computer vision enables software to directly interface with every part of the world around us, unleashing a Cambrian explosion of new possibilities. It’s helping us merge the physical and digital worlds. That’s why computer vision needs to be a part of every developer’s toolkit, not reserved for a few teams of machine learning experts.”

The Series A round comes less than a year after Roboflow raised a $2.1 million seed round in January.

Just last month, the company launched “Roboflow Universe” a community hub that allows anyone to share their computer vision datasets and pre-trained models with the world. Roboflow Universe was featured as the no. 1 product of the day last week on ProductHunt.

To date, more than 50,000 developers have used the service, with use cases ranging from protecting endangered species to accelerating microbiology research to cleaning the world’s oceans.

“We first met Joseph and Brad when they were participating in YC. After using the product, we could see that Roboflow had created a tool that enables any developer — not just ones with machine learning expertise — to harness the power of computer vision,” wrote David Sacks in a post titled, Why We Invested in Roboflow. “Their thesis, that machine learning can be transformative in almost any industry, has been proven out over the last year, as they now work with customers across diverse industries with myriad use cases.”

David Sacks will be joining Roboflow’s Board of Directors along with Arra Malekzadeh.

The company is actively hiring and currently has seven positions listed on its careers page including open positions for Machine Learning Engineer and Head of Marketing.

Previous coverage

Roboflow launches “Roboflow Universe,” a community hub for computer vision projects -Aug. 12, 2021

Roboflow raises $2.1 million seed round -Jan. 12, 2021

Roboflow accepted into Y Combinator’s Summer 2020 Batch -Aug. 25, 2020

Roboflow is streamlining the development of computer vision apps -Jan. 23, 2020

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Roboflow raises $20 million Series A to continue democratizing computer vision | Clay & Milk
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