NYU’s deep learning technology developer has pushed its overall funding to $100m in a series C round backed by the university.
Clarifai, a US-based deep learning technology producer spun out of New York University (NYU), has hauled in $60m through a series C round backed by the NYU Innovation Venture Fund.
Venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA) led the round, which also included Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s CPP Investments vehicle, Menlo Ventures, Union Square Ventures, LDV Capital, Lux Capital, Corazon Capital, NextEquity Partners, SineWave Ventures and Trousdale Capital.
Founded in 2013, Clarifai has developed artificial intelligence technology that recognises and extracts items from image and video content. It will use the funding to expand its sales, marketing and engineering teams.
The round boosted the company’s total funding to $100m and follows a $30m Menlo Ventures-led series B round in 2016 that included spinout-focused venture firm Osage University Partners (OUP).
Semiconductor producer Qualcomm’s corporate venturing unit, Qualcomm Ventures, also backed the series B round, as did Union Square Ventures (USV), Lux Capital and unnamed others.
OUP had joined NYU, Qualcomm Ventures, internet and technology group Alphabet’s GV unit and Nvidia Ventures, a subsidiary of computer graphics card producer Nvidia, in a $10m series A round led by USV in 2015. Corazon Capital and Lux Capital also invested at the time.
NYU had already backed a $1.25m seed round the previous year, investing alongside Corazon Capital, LDV Capital, GV, Qualcomm Ventures and Nvidia Ventures.
– A version of this article first appeared on our sister site, Global Corporate Venturing.
Fernando Moncada Rivera
Fernando Moncada Rivera is a reporter at Global Corporate Venturing and also host of the CVC Unplugged podcast.
