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What they do

NEURA Robotics is a German high-tech company founded in 2019 in Metzingen near Stuttgart with the goal to revolutionize the world of robotics. Our mission is to expand the skill set of collaborative robots with cognitive capabilities so that they can work with humans in existing environments without having to invest in complex and costly safety systems. We aim to help make numerous fields of work more attractive, safer, and more social. Our guiding principle “we serve humanity” sums up this mission.

Today, more than 300 team members from over 30 countries are working on advanced technology in the fields of environmental perception, drive and control technology, materials science, mechanical design, and artificial intelligence.

With the unique approach of developing all key components such as AI, control software, sensor technology, and mechanical components in-house, the development team – led by our founder David Reger – has made groundbreaking progress in a variety of areas. In a record time of three years, we have laid the groundwork for humans and robots to literally work hand-in-hand.

The unrivaled cost efficiency and the optimal interaction of all components created the basis for driving innovations and defining new standards. With products such as MAiRA, the world’s first cognitive robot, or MiPA, an intelligent versatile robotic assistant that will support people in all areas of life, humanity awaits a new era of robotics. NEURA Robotics is currently working on launching 4NE-1 (“For Anyone”), the first humanoid robot ready for series production.

With the Neuraverse, a comprehensive ecosystem for innovations in the field of cognitive robotics, NEURA Robotics is creating an important technical basis for automation solutions and enabling the networking of robots and partner companies on a global scale.

How we met

Our journey with NEURA Robotics began at Slush 2024, where our very last meeting introduced us to them. their visionary team and groundbreaking technology. Inspired by their potential, we immediately embarked on a rigorous due diligence process, which included site visits, reference calls, and financial validation. Right before the end of the year, we solidified our commitment to this exceptional opportunity.

What they do
Alice & Bob is a quantum computing company based in Paris and Boston whose goal is to create the first universal, fault-tolerant quantum computer. Founded in 2020, Alice & Bob has already raised €130 million in funding, hired over 110 employees and demonstrated experimental results surpassing those of technology giants such as Google or IBM. Alice & Bob specializes in cat qubits. Demonstrating the power of its cat architecture, Alice & Bob recently showed that it could reduce the hardware requirements for building a useful large-scale quantum computer by up to 200 times compared with competing approaches. At the center of cat qubits’ hardware-efficiency is the inherent suppression of bit-flip errors, one of the two types of errors that plague quantum computers. This property is key to enabling more efficient architectures for Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computers (FTQCs) that resist errors and can be used in real-world applications. Alice & Bob is the only player developing quantum computers exclusively with this type of qubit, which the company has pioneered since its inception in 2020. Alice & Bob cat qubit is available for anyone to test through cloud access. Follow Alice & Bob on LinkedIn, X orYouTube, visit their website www.alice-bob.com, or join The Cat Tree on Slack to learn more.

What they do
Today, 65% of patients don’t go through with their dental treatment because they haven’t fully grasped what’s at stake. Allisone is an AI-enabled software that offers dental professionals tools to improve their medical, administrative and communication flows with patients.

Where the human eye needs several minutes and a lot of experience, Allisone’s AI compares and evaluates millions of images in one second. It can color code in real time the lesions seen on dental X-rays and then provide educational cards and reports for patients. In doing so, it acts as a catalyst to getting patients to follow through with their care.

The product, launched in its beta version in 2022, already brings support on a daily basis to more than 1000 practitioners who have already created more than 20,000 patient files, analysed more than 300,000 elements on dental x-rays and validated 70,000 treatment acts.

From our experience as early investors in the 3D-printing unicorn Formlabs, which brings in-house production to the entire dental industry, we have become very familiar with the problems that dentists can face in their daily workflows. When we met Lionel, Cédric and Sacha, we knew that the AI they had built promised many upheavals in the world of dentistry; only for the better!

What they were doing
Anki’s dream was to bring artificial intelligence and consumer robotics into our everyday life. Anki’s first product was Anki Overdrive, based on an innovative technology that brings together video games and physical toys. Using a smartphone, the user could race a real toy car around Anki’s track, challenge friends, or play against other cars controlled by Anki’s AI.

They launched Cozmo, a palm-sized social robot that could recognise its user and amuse him with complex facial expressions, a host of emotions, and his own voice and language. All you needed to make him come to life was a compatible Android or iOS device. You could also see what was under Comzo’s hood as Anki released a free SDK allowing anyone to tap into his power! After shipping millions of units of this Wall-e-like robot, Anki released a more autonomous version called Vector which was intended to be a true robotic sidekick.

Despite these past successes, Anki did not find significant funding to support future product development. They had to put an end to their incredible adventures in April 2019 after a significant financial deal at a late stage fell through with a strategic investor.

How we met
We came across Anki at their debut at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2013, which made us dream as if we were kids again. Following their success in their home market, we helped them expand to Europe.
Furthermore, we came to establish a close relationship with Boris, the CEO and Co-Founder. Boris is one of the most brilliant founders we’ve ever met but remains approchable and down-to-earth. After all, it is not all founders who send us a picture of their babies when they are born.

What they do
TV habits are changing: today a third of TVs in the US and Europe are Smart TVs, and three quarters of viewers watch TV while using another device. This means Broadcasters are facing new and critical challenges.

Applicaster is where TV meets Mobile. With its enterprise SaaS solution it enables the broadcasters to optimise their business on the go and in front of the TV, delivering amazing interactive experience for their end customers. Applicaster is proving that the marriage between TV and Mobile goes way beyond video streaming and digital rights.

How we met
Jonathan Laor has led Applicaster and its new media delivery platform since 2009. Our friends at Pitango Capital introduced Jon to Pascal and he was immediately convinced by a founder who thinks faster than he can talk (and he talks really fast!). Olivier was equally impressed by Jon’s talent and vision, so supporting them in their expansion especially in Europe was definitely a no brainer.

What they do
Most projects start with search queries. You grab your phone or computer, you open a new tab, you type a few words in the address bar and start learning a ton of things by reading stuff, watching videos, interacting on forums and more. But when you close your browser window, everything disappears.
Well, not with Beam. Beam is a new breed of software considering search as an API. Beam passively follows users as they click on links, open new pages and spend time looking at stuff. Every time you search for something, it creates a new note card. When you close the tab, you have a new card — your search query is the title of the card and you can see all links under that note. You can then add text, remove links that weren’t that relevant, therefore bringing meaning to your web history.
While currently in beta, Beam is already thinking about future ways to expand, such as interactive and collaborative features… Ultimately, Beam’s ambition is to transform the way we interact with the browser, search and knowledge in order to make our work more efficient, more collaborative and fluid.

How we met
Dom is a serial entrepreneur and sold his previous company Sparrow to Google. When we heard he was onto something new we reached out to learn more and were seduced by the idea of Beam and A team behind it.

What they do
Centrical’s Founder and CEO, Gal Rimon, was the top executive for a business intelligence (BI) software company. BI let managers know how employees are doing, but it typically does not convey how to turn manager insights into employee performance. Gal Rimon saw an unfulfilled need and found that applying gamification to learning or training processes would improve employee engagement and knowledge levels, and, as a result, performance would rise. It was effective. It used game mechanics. He called the company GamEffective. Not a bad name at the time.

Six years later, the company has evolved to be about much more than gamified learning. GamEffective became Centrical, an AI-powered platform addressing all dimensions of employee performance by placing employees at the center of work processes. It relies on three core components: advanced gamification, personalized microlearning and real-time performance management. In short, better motivation, better learning, better feedback.

Part of the recipe for success, Centrical also shines through diversity as demonstrated by Gal’s #1 spot in the global SMB ranking of CEOs for diversity by Comparably.

Centrical operates in New York City and Israel and works with many of the world’s top companies, including Microsoft, Novartis, Adobe, Teleperformance, Unilever, and Swiss Life, among others.

How we met
All of our meetings with Gal were on Zoom as we looked at Centrical in the middle of the Covid lockdown, but that didn’t prevent him to win us over. HR tech had been on our radar for a long time so we knew that they had found the right formula in terms of market fit and economics to scale globally, but we were still impressed by their ability to execute in record time, both on product and commercial initiatives.

A good example of that is Centrical Connect, a product they released at the onset of the Covid-19 crisis, to address WFH organisations, leading to record low sales cycles and record-high user engagement.

What they do
Cleeng is an SaaS platform that enables content providers to sell videos, live event streams, newspapers, documents, pictures and other types of media.
It is an all-in-one advanced technology that supports any CMS, any type of content, any web format and any web-enabled device. Publishers like Canal+, Orange, Daily Motion, Epicurious, Condé Nast and VentureBeat are using Cleeng’s pay-per-view, VOD and subscription services. The exponential increase in production and sharing of digital content combined with the consumers’ increased willingness to pay for content supports C4 Ventures belief that Cleeng’s truly brilliant technology will be in the forefront of content commerce solutions.

The founders
Founders Gilles, Donald and Benedicte have extensive experience across Apple, Philips, Packard Bell and NEC. Pascal’s relationship with Gilles, stemming from their time at Packard Bell, played a very important role in the investment decision; however, it is the team’s straightforward and honest way of working that dictates the proximity between C4 Ventures and Cleeng.

What they do
Shopping habits have changed dramatically over the past few years in so many industries with a shift to online retailing. However, Furniture and Interior Design in particular are late to the digitisation game with only 4% of spending occurring online. So, when a unique marketplace with a virtuous business model onboards hundreds of the top design brands to revolutionise an offline and opaque industry like furniture and lighting sourcing, we would have been crazy not to listen. 

Lead by Serial Entrepreneurs Adel and Tom, Clippings is the UK’s online destination for sourcing furniture and lighting. It alleviates crucial pain points in the discovery and purchase experience for trade customers – architects and interior designers who need to specify furniture and lighting regularly. Clippings enables these customers to search over a million products through a single interface, get dynamic information on lead times, transparent pricing and manage their orders to their needs.

Clippings is the embodiment of the Future of Commerce for interior design and we are excited to be part of their development. 

How we met
Boris had been investigating the online furniture space for a while when Stuart, another great entrepreneur put us in contact with Clippings. When he first met Adel and Tom, Boris was impressed by the pair, their industry knowledge and experience but also by their unique vision. In fact, even the architects Pascal work with on his personal projects are now addicted to Clippings!