Highlights:

  • Established in 2020 by Chief Executive Eliot Horowitz, also a Co-founder and former chief technology officer of MongoDB, Viam is crafted to serve as a conduit between hardware, the cloud, and artificial intelligence for “smart machines.”
  • Through the platform’s modular and “pluggable” design, developers can seamlessly integrate IoT devices, automation, alerting, and monitoring functionalities for both home and industrial applications.

Viam Inc., an open-source cloud-based software platform overseeing data for smart machines, recently revealed that it has secured USD 45 million in new funding. The investment will fuel the expansion of its enterprise partnerships and enhance its developer ecosystem.

Viam’s recent funding round saw participation from existing investors Union Square Ventures and Battery Ventures. With this influx of new funding, the company’s total raised capital now stands at USD 87 million.

Established in 2020 by Chief Executive Eliot Horowitz, also a Co-founder and former chief technology officer of MongoDB, Viam is crafted to serve as a conduit between hardware, the cloud, and artificial intelligence for “smart machines.” Viam enables data aggregation from hardware, robotics, and sensors, feeding it into the cloud for analysis and action across the entire stack.

Horowitz said, “Everywhere we look, we’re surrounded by devices that promise a lot, and deliver a little. From the beginning, our guiding thesis has been that if we can make it easier to write software for those machines — if we can empower developers with flexible, intuitive, and powerful tools — we’ll massively accelerate innovation in the real world.”

Horowitz contends that Viam uniquely addresses this issue by integrating hardware and software under a single umbrella in an unconventional manner. This includes low-level hardware APIs, software algorithms, cloud connectivity, integrated fleet management, remote monitoring, tele-operations, predictive maintenance, mobile access, and AI.

This integration forms a platform that offers developers access to a comprehensive array of smart devices, encompassing Internet of Things devices, industrial robots, and home devices. All without the need to learn how to program for ten vendors that don’t utilize the same languages or protocols.

Through the platform’s modular and “pluggable” design, developers can seamlessly integrate IoT devices, automation, alerting, and monitoring functionalities for both home and industrial applications. For instance, the platform could automatically detect anomalies in machinery, which monitoring software could promptly diagnose and remediate by adjusting operations before alerting repair crews for further inspection.

Water flow detectors could monitor leaks by identifying unusual flow patterns during off-hours. Upon detection, the system could automatically shut off the valves and alert plumbers to inspect the pipes for potential issues.

Horowitz stated, “Whether it’s a home HVAC or machines on an assembly line, machine downtime has a massive impact on people’s lives and livelihoods. Viam’s assertion — now becoming visible in the world — is that any kind of machine should be accessible remotely, completely securely, be able to provide enough data to diagnose issues, and ideally prevent any serious issues.”

Viam’s recent funding round coincides with its partnership with the Whale and Vessel Safety Task Force earlier this month to establish an open data collection initiative for North Atlantic Right Whale conservation endeavors. As an endangered species, North Atlantic Right Whales face numerous threats, including the danger of vessel strikes. In collaboration with WAVS, Viam contributed to developing data capture technology that utilizes existing hardware on vessels, including navigation and communication systems and infrared and visual cameras. AI uses this data to mitigate the risk of vessel strikes for whales.

Eliot mentioned that Viam maintains ongoing partnerships with industrial, automation, and innovation teams alongside the funding. These partnerships are geared towards ensuring optimal machine performance through edge networks. They enable device-to-cloud data pipelines for monitoring, predictive maintenance, and remote diagnostics. Additional partnerships will further Viam’s efforts to deploy machine learning and AI models via Viam’s Modular Registry, addressing real-world applications effectively.