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Phiar Technologies Secures $12 Million Series A: how two tech-savvy guys try to build an AI engine to power every AR application
Phiar Technologies, founded by Harvard postdoc AI researcher Chen-Ping Yu and his college friend James Briscoe, has closed a $USD 12M Series A. In addition, this company has former Google Global Head of Android Automotive Platforms Gene Karshenboym as the new CEO. The success of the company all originates from when Chen Ping joked with James 20 years ago: Why don’t we build the next Microsoft?
Chen-Ping Yu has been fascinated by “intelligence” since he was a student. He decided to major in computer science for researching artificial intelligence in college. “I talked about coding and technology with my classmate James Briscoe all the time, and one day, I kind of wondered why Bill Gates can build Microsoft, which was by that time the most valuable company,” Chen-Ping said, “But how about we build a Microsoft too? I told James.”
The two close friends started brainstorming the success key of Microsoft. “I found out that the key is Microsoft launched the product, Windows operating system, that everyone has the need to use,” said Chen-Ping.
Chen-Ping and James thought the robot should be the next trend. “That was 20 years ago, Honda developed a humanoid robot called ASIMO, and we thought that was the next big thing,” said Chen-Ping. For robotic technology, vision can be seen as the most important factor for robots to function properly. Robots need to see an object and analyze it, then they can have the response. The related subject, without a doubt, is computer vision.
To build the next Microsoft, he hit the books to become a Harvard postdoc AI researcher
From that day, Chen-Ping threw himself into computer vision research. Although computer vision was unmatured and barely had people foresee its potential, all these did not throw cold water on him.
As Chen-Ping dug deeper into the computer vision world, he gained more and more interest and decided to go to The State University of New York at Stony Brook for pursuing a Ph.D. degree, as well as applied for the Harvard postdoc AI researcher position. “Robots eventually did not take over the world, so the startup dream kind of faded away from my memory,” said Chen-Ping.
Equipped with the most advanced AI knowledge, Chen-Ping had been trying to leverage the knowledge to benefit people. One day when he drove in Boston, he felt the route was really complex, and even the navigation system was barely useful. As a result, he thought of building an AI-powered AR navigation solution for driving. Luckily, he found that his old classmate James was also in Boston. “We reconnected and seriously talked about establishing a startup, a startup that enables every vehicle to have human-like perception capabilities,” said Chen-Ping.
Win favor from Y Combinator
In 2017, Chin-Ping and James founded Phiar. They combined the Spatial-AI engine and the Mobility AR Engine to bring perception and intelligence to automotive navigation, by enabling vehicles to understand the environment better in real-time for intelligent navigation, smart parking, HD mapping, vision-based live road detections, and traffic conditions.
Not long after they founded the company, in the summer of 2018, they attended Y Combinator, the most well-known accelerator in the world, and won favor from lots of investors and automotive companies.
This month, they successfully closed the series A funding and won 3 POC deals with tier-1 automotive OEMs(Original Equipment Manufacturer), as well as partnered with leading maps and navigation vendors such as TomTom and HERE.
The new Series A fund was led by State Farm Ventures that includes new investors Cambridge Mobile Telematics and Telenav, and previous investors Norwest Venture Partners, The Venture Reality Fund, and GFR Fund.
In the meantime, Chen-Ping decided to shift roles to Chairman of the Board and CTO to focus on leading spacial-AI technology and product development as Karshenboym onboards to lead the future global growth of the company. Gene Karshenboym brings nearly 10 years in developing partnerships and technology in the Android and automotive industry and has served on Phiar's board of directors since 2020.
“It is truly impressive the success and growth that Chen-Ping and the Phiar team have already achieved by developing intelligent AR navigation solutions with their lightweight spatial-AI technologies, that will bring drivers and passengers a driving experience like never before. As the global automotive industry is on the cusp of a major shift to AI-based technology integration, it’s an exciting time to be joining Phiar!” Gene Karshenboym said.
“Gene’s addition to our leadership team, bringing his track record of successful partnerships in the automotive industry, and our new injection of funding will enable us to further develop and differentiate our AI engine and camera-based AR technology, expand our integrations across OEMs and our partnerships with Tier-1 companies, and build our go-to-market resources for key markets,” Chen-Ping said.
Chen-Ping still remembers the key to why Microsoft can be this valuable - build a product everyone has to use. “Now we are leveraging our AI & AR engine in the navigation application, but we will keep perfecting our engine, and my ultimate goal is that every spatial or AR application in the world can be powered by our engine,” said Chen-Ping.
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