Mycroft AI inks $1.75M in oversubscribed round, battling Amazon, Google
January 12, 2018 | Bobby Burch
In a quiet room amid the chaos of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Mycroft AI CEO Josh Montgomery gleefully told Startland News Friday that his tech firm raised a significant seed round.
Mycroft recently raised a $1.75 million round that will help the Kansas City-based artificial intelligence startup accelerate hiring plans and corporate partnerships. The seed round exceeded the firm’s goal by more than $1 million, Montgomery said.
“It’s fantastic — it shows we’re in an exciting space and positions the company for huge success,” Montgomery said. “It’s exciting to be growing a company in Kansas City.”
Mycroft created an open-source voice assistant similar to Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana or Amazon’s Alexa. The firm’s Mark I device — which raised $335,000 in a Kickstarter campaign — uses natural language processing technology to enable its everyday use in a consumer’s home.
A 2016 Sprint Accelerator grad, Mycroft AI will be deploying a smart speaker — the Mark II — via a Kickstarter campaign Jan. 25.
Among those joining in the seed round were the Missouri Technology Corporation, Kansas City-based Northland Angels, Deep Space Ventures, TechNexus and Social Starts, Montgomery said. The local support is meaningful to Mycroft, Montgomery said.
“It shows Kansas City has an up-and-coming startup scene,” Montgomery said. “There’s funding available for good ideas with solid execution.”
With an open-source, open-hardware approach, Mycroft allows users across the globe to develop software and hardware add-ons. Already working with Jaguar Land Rover, Mycroft aims to be a neutral integration for other corporations that view Google or Amazon as competition.
“Lots of companies want to deploy voice assistants but aren’t excited about sending their data to big tech,” Montgomery said. “This positions us for success with corporate engagements.”
Mycroft AI hopes to hire up to 40 staffers in 2018 to build out its software and business development teams, Montgomery said.
Mycroft AI was named a Startland Top Startup to Watch in 2017. To watch Montgomery in a full video interview with Techcrunch, check out the video below.
Featured Business
2018 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
UMKC, Digital Sandbox KC partnership to maximize resources, create jobs
The University of Missouri-Kansas City’s E-Scholars program has partnered with a business incubator program to provide resources and capital to student entrepreneurs. The program has partnered with Digital Sandbox KC to offer inroads to students to further develop their business projects with additional funding. “The UMKC Entrepreneurship Scholars program has a very specific goal –…
KC smart city ‘an invitation’ to innovators, entrepreneurs
The City of Kansas City, Mo., has signed an agreement with Sprint and Cisco to create the largest smart city in North America in the City of Fountains. Sprint will be building a network of connectivity worth up to $7 million dollars while Cisco will be providing smart city infrastructure worth upwards of $5 million. The…
Startup Little Hoots working with Today Show, Huffington Post
Kansas City-based Little Hoots has scored two high-profile partnerships that are scoring its memory-saving app thousands of additional downloads. The tech firm is working with the Today Show and the Huffington Post to provide snippets from its memory-keeping platform that captures youngsters’ memorable quotations to share with friends and family. “Whenever they publish one of these Little Hoots…
RECAP: 1 Million Cups panel offers decision-making advice
Three entrepreneurs took the stage at 1 Million Cups this week to offer advice on navigating the tough world of entrepreneurship. Alex Altomare, co-founder of BetaBlox, Linda Buchner, co-founder and president of Minddrive, and Ben Kittrell, co-founder and CTO of Doodlekit, all spoke about the variety of hard choices entrepreneurs face. On handling tough decisions……