Formerly known as Isocline, the AI platform and hardware developer Mythic announced today the closing of a $9 million Series A round led by DFJ. With Mythic’s technologies, any device can be capable of gaining AI functionalities and voice control without sacrificing battery life.
Founded in 2012, the Austin startup will use the new funds to scale their engineering operations and take their software and product to market. This Series A also includes a follow-on convertible note. Several additional investors — Lux Capital, Data Collective, AME Cloud Ventures — also participated.
Mythic powers consumer electronics, wearables, security platforms and more by pulling from local AI sources, avoiding the need for cloud-based solutions that other AI products require. The result is a more private, energy efficient and secure device on an untethered network. According to the company, their learning chips, which are smaller than a dime, are less expensive and require less energy than what’s currently available in the IoT industry.
"Other local AI solutions compromise on what consumers and commercial companies care about – battery life, throughput, and accuracy," said Michael Henry, co-founder and CEO of Mythic, in a statement. "We saw early on the opportunities afforded AI from processor-in-memory technology and new methods of computing outside of the binary 1 and 0 world. This would become a foundation for the Mythic platform that revolutionizes local AI design and performance."
Mythic will initially look to penetrate industries ranging from smart home devices, industrial drones and action cameras to healthcare and commercial and residential security. They have plans to enter robotics, autonomous vehicles, AR and VR in the future.
According to the statement, the company is planning for volume shipments beginning mid-2018 and is currently putting together a field test of early adopters.
Previously, Mythic has raised about $2.5 million in angel rounds and grants to financially support the development of the platform. The team is currently hiring for engineering roles in Austin.
Image via Shutterstock.
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