Pratexo Inc., an Austin, Texas-based intelligent edge computing and distributed cloud platform for AI, IoT, and Industry 4.0, closed a $3.5M seed funding round.
The round was led by BCP Blitz LP, Raiven Capital, and Northscaler, along with a consortium of business and technology leaders from the U.S., Canada, and Scandinavia.
The company intends to use the funds to accelerate both its platform development and go-to-market efforts across North America and Europe.
Led by Blaine Mathieu, CEO, Pratexo provides a technology platform to support IoT and artificial intelligence strategies and initiatives which demand compute power at the edge, such as near sensors or cameras placed in remote locations. Suited for industries such as shipping, energy, utilities, defense, and smart buildings/cities, Pratexo uses open and proven technologies to configure the most appropriate architecture for a particular type of edge application.
In addition to the investment round, the company announced it has added seven new members to its Advisory Board, most of whom are also investors in the company. The Advisory Board now includes:
- Dr. Nimi Abili: Chair of Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (Houston Branch) and Consulting CTO for numerous multinational energy companies.
- Trond Riiber Knudsen: 25 years as a Global Senior Partner at McKinsey. Now leads TRK Group, focused on disruptive technologies.
- Marianne Lie: Executive Vice Chairman at shipping giant Wilhelmsen ASA and Secretary-General at The Forum for Environmental Technology.
- Harald Norvik: Former CEO of Statoil (now Equinor) and Chairman of Telenor. Current board member of ConocoPhilips.
- Peter Norwood: Google Site Leader (Austin, TX) and Engineering Director. One of the original employees at Tivoli and closely involved with the Austin VC community.
- Frode Odegard: Chairman and CEO of the Post-Lean Institute – a research and advisory firm helping corporates, investors, and policymakers navigate tech-driven disruption.
- Bill Scott: Engineering leader and UX guru involved in the early development of Yahoo, Netflix, and Paypal.
FinSMEs
02/07/2021