Edge Case Research Raises $7M to Make Autonomy Safer
By: Mike Wagner, Edge Case Research, Co-Founder and CEO
Safety is the foundation on which our autonomous future will be built. We have to trust that the automation we’re handing our car keys to, that flies our planes, and that diagnoses our diseases will keep us safe. Yet as fleets of autonomous vehicles expand into cities across the world, there remains uncertainty around whether the public can trust the safety of this emerging technology. As we watched autonomy emerge from university research labs onto the roads, skies, and hospitals, we realized we had an amazing opportunity to make autonomy safer and worthy of our trust. That’s the reason we created Edge Case Research.
Over the past few years, we have built a team of world-class experts in the fields of autonomy safety engineering at Edge Case, and we’ve worked with dozens of customers who were developing autonomous products across a variety of industries. Whether you’re building a self-driving car, a truck platooning feature, an autonomous drone, or a haul truck working in a mine site, you need to trust that your product will tackle unforeseen circumstances safely. But developers don’t have the tools they need to meet this challenge. Put simply, the real world poses far too many edge cases to enumerate, much less exhaustively test. And while expertise in traditional safety techniques is necessary, consultants alone are insufficient for getting safe products to market.
Our team realized that what our customers need is a defensive product design paired with continuous risk analysis. Edge Case provides customers with both in Hologram, our large-scale risk analysis platform that operates at the speed of modern machine learning development. Our vision is for Hologram to bring the wisdom of safety experts together with devops automation that’s continuously monitoring autonomy technology for unexpected risks.
Our plan for Hologram has to be ambitious, because our customers’ goals are ambitious, too. Just over the past year we’ve doubled the size of the company and worked for customers around the world. We’re developing safety standards for autonomy and building an ecosystem to support a safer autonomous future.
Now, I’m excited to announce that we’ve raised $7M from an amazing team of investors so that we can take the next step. I’m honored that our two lead investors will join our board of directors: Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO of Aurora, and ANSYS, the global leader in engineering simulation. They are joined by Lockheed Martin Ventures, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, Trucks VC, and Blue Tree Allied Angels in this round.
This investment not only provides the resources needed to bring a scalable Hologram to market, but also assembles a team with the expertise we need to build a product that truly serves a dynamic emerging market. Chris is a pioneer who’s responsible for bringing the self-driving car industry where it is today. His perspective is invaluable for ensuring that our safety philosophy is compatible with how developers build cutting-edge autonomy technologies. The ANSYS team brings not only unparalleled expertise in simulation and a global sales presence, but strong safety credentials from the aerospace industry that translates into a deep understanding of autonomy safety. We’re proud to partner with them and their team of experts in the autonomy space.
Our strategic cooperative agreement with Lockheed Martin helps us serve aerospace and defense customers that benefit from our solutions for the automotive market. Developing insurance solutions for autonomous vehicles represents a tremendous business opportunity for Hologram risk assessment, and we thank Liberty Mutual Insurance for helping us develop plans for this market. Trucks VC is an influential funder in the mobility space and understands that safety solutions like Hologram are truly enabling technologies. We deeply appreciate the support of Blue Tree Allied Angels from Pittsburgh, and are already benefiting from its strong network in a city that’s been the source of so much autonomy innovation.
The Edge Case team is thankful for the support of our investors and customers, and we’re excited to share even more important news with you in the coming months. As CEO, I regularly hear from people throughout the tech industry who want to join and support Edge Case Research. I’m proud that our vision, our team, and our technologies are making a difference to our customers while growing our company and forming an ecosystem to make autonomy safer.
