Prewave, an artificial intelligence spin-off from the Vienna University of Technology, announced the closing of its seed financing round today, with investments from IST Cube and Pioneers Ventures. The funds will be used to expand sales and marketing and to further enhance Prewave’s cutting-edge AI technology.
Prewave was incorporated in 2017 and stems from five years of advanced machine learning research conducted by co-founder Dr. Lisa Madlberger at the Vienna University of Technology. Prewave’s technology allows to generate risk intelligence for its clients, based on world-wide social media and news data. A working prototype for supply chain management applications has already been successfully evaluated by a leading global logistics provider, and the technology is envisaged to also create substantial benefits for further markets, such as sustainability and insurance.
Co-Founders Dr. Lisa Madlberger and Harald Nitschinger explain Prewave’s mission: “It is our goal to make risks happening around the world transparent for the first time. Our core technology, the Prewave prediction engine, enables us to detect risk events on a global scale, days and sometimes even weeks before they happen. This information can improve decision making for various application domains and markets, ranging from NGOs to supply chain management, corporate sustainability, and the insurance industry.”
The investment round is led by IST CUBE, with Pioneers Ventures as a co-investor. IST CUBE is a new venture fund, set up by the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, aiming to provide equity investments and support for science and tech-based academic spin-offs and startups. Rupesh Chatwani, managing director of IST CUBE explains that “Prewave is exactly the type of startup we are looking for: a seed stage company with an impressive technology background, driven by an ambitious team, with a solid global market outlook. While many startups add ‘AI’ to their pitches because it is fashionable, Prewave builds a truly leveraging technology to have a global impact.”
Pioneers Ventures is a $10M venture capital fund advancing the growth of pre-seed and seed startups. Besides a cash contribution, Pioneers Ventures also opens up its global network of industry experts, provides help in securing follow-on financing and supports founders strategically on a daily basis. With currently more than 30 portfolio companiesin twelve European countries, Pioneers Ventures has experience in a wide range of industries like health tech, mobility, infrastructure tech and financial services.
Prewave was incubated at the TUW i²ncubator and is supported by the Austrian Wirtschaftsservice and the Vienna Business Agency. Prewave is part of the current WeXelerate program and the Werk1 InsurTech program in Munich.
Contact
Inquiries regarding Prewave shall be directed to:
Harald Nitschinger, info@prewave.ai | www.prewave.ai
Inquiries regarding IST Cube shall be directed to:
Markus Wanko, markus.wanko@ist-cube.com
Inquiries regarding Pioneers Ventures shall be directed to:
Markus Lang, markus@pioneers.io
