Qvyon Technologies, a physical AI startup, has emerged from stealth with $8 million USD in seed financing to help autonomous vehicle and robotics companies deal with unpredictable edge cases. The company, led by co-founder and CEO Frantz Saintellemy, aims to allow companies to test and validate AI-enabled robots and self-driving vehicles before putting them to work.
Saintellemy, the former CEO of automotive tech company LeddarTech, launched Qvyon Technologies to address the challenges of deploying smart robots in factories and on roads. The unpredictability of the physical world (and random human behaviors) has created challenges for companies hoping to earn public trust and drive adoption.
Addressing Edge Cases
The company’s software product, MIMIC Core, blends real-world data, which a company can input from its own cameras or sensors, with an AI system that can then generate tons of variations from one recording, allowing a company’s engineers to learn where their systems are making mistakes.
Saintellemy said that simulation and synthetic data alone couldn’t solve the problem, so Qvyon took a different approach. The company’s tech can be a complement to existing AI simulators, like a “reality infrastructure” layer on top that uses real-world data.
Customers and Funding
Qvyon has already landed customers in the self-driving sector, including NuPort Robotics, an autonomous trucking company based in Markham, Ont., which partnered with Canadian Tire and says it is testing trucks with customers in multiple provinces. Beyond the self-driving sector, it has landed another customer in US manufacturer Voltava, which Qvyon says will use its tech to validate inspection systems in factories. The $8 million USD in seed financing, which closed in April, consists of $6 million USD in equity from Mac Venture Capital, BDC Capital’s Black Entrepreneurs Fund, BKR Capital, and Spotlight VP, as well as $2 million in venture debt from RBCx.
Jason Baibokas, managing director at BDC Capital who leads the Black Entrepreneurship Fund, said in a statement that every industry putting AI into physical action will have to prove it’s safe before deployment. “Qvyon is building the answer,” he said.
Roadmap
Qvyon’s roughly 20-person team plans to use the funding to deploy the MIMIC platform and land customers in the US, Europe, and Japan, with a roadmap to launching new products in 2027. These include a system to measure and document test results, and one to improve the AI system using information from machines already in use.