US- and India-based Lincode Labs Inc, an artificial intelligence (AI) vision inspection startup focused on the manufacturing industry, has raised capital in its seed round of funding.
The startup has raised the funds from US-based early-stage investment firms Come Back Capital, founded by Scott Shane, and RSCM LLC, founded by David Lambert, Lincode said in a statement. It did not disclose the amount it raised.
It also raised an additional amount in angel funding led by The Einfach Group, founded by Pratap Krishna, it added.
The company will use the funds for product development, research & development (R&D), and sales and marketing. The angel funding will be used for patent-filing and business expansion.
Lincode was founded in 2017 by Rajesh Iyengar and Ritika Nigam. The startup helps manufacturers to identify, predict, and eliminate product defects using computer vision and machine learning.
The firm says it has around 40 clients globally across industries from automotive, electronics, pharmaceutical, polymer, and metal industries.
Iyengar, who is also the CEO of the firm, said the startup seeks to make smart manufacturing lean and accessible to the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
“We are also looking to enable seamless autonomous manufacturing and make ‘work from home’ easy and convenient for employees in the post-COVID-19 world,” he added.
The funding comes amid the growing coronavirus infections across the globe which has crippled business activity significantly.
In India, angel and seed deal volumes finally came off their perch amid the pandemic, falling a little more than 25% in May. Venture deal volumes, which have suffered since March when the lockdown started, continued to remain subdued last month.
Deals in the AI space
AI startups have seen a massive surge of investor interest and funding in the last few years, as companies and clients across sectors seek to address pain points in their operations. Startups are also using to open up new products, service categories, and entire sectors.
Earlier in February, CamCom, an AI- and deep learning-based startup that is focussed on quality assessment, defect and damage detection, raised pre-Series A funding from venture capital firm Triton Investment Advisors.
Just last month, AI-based business photography firm Spyne, conversational AI tech startup Voicezen and AI-based climate-focused startup Blue Sky attracted funding.