Ghent computer vision company Robovision raises $42 million

The Ghent specialist in AI computer vision Robovision has raised $42 million. The company aims to expand in the United States and strengthen its sales and marketing.

Robovision wants to expand faster with the money raised. “Opening an office in the US is a priority,” said CEO Thomas Van den Driessche. In concrete terms, it concerns a team of five to six people on the American East Coast. ‘They will focus on sales, marketing and operations.’

Robovision’s engineers specialize in developing software that allows machines to see and interpret their environment. That is a branch of artificial intelligence.

Customers are machine builders in various sectors, ranging from agriculture and horticulture to the manufacturing industry and life sciences, for example for the detection of very small brain tumors.

End users can use the system to create AI solutions themselves without having to use computer code. The Gente company’s technology is now on more than a thousand machines in 45 countries.

For example, a machine was developed with hardware partner ISO Group for planting tulips. Good for 1 billion tulips annually, half of the world production. The technology is also an important link for Japanese giant Hitachi in producing wafers in the semiconductor industry.

The new equity round is led by global venture capitalist Target Global and Astanor Ventures, a fund with a particular focus on the impact of investments on the planet. Red River West, specialized in expansion into the US, completes the round. Together with existing investments from PE Capital Group, Atlasinvest,
Dovesco, Finindus and PMV, this brings the capital raised to $65 million.

When he started his company in 2007, chairman and founder Jonathan Berte did not want external capital to maintain sufficient freedom of movement.

‘There is a period of innovation when you have to be able to be stubborn without too much strategic interference. Otherwise you won’t have a global impact,” he explains. Berte held 80 percent of the capital and co-founder and chief technological officer (CTO) Tim Waegeman 20 percent. ‘Now external capital is possible. We have a mature business model and a proven platform,” says Berte. ‘The revenues are recurring, the customers stay for the long term, there is a high value per customer. That resonates with investors.’ Together with Waegeman, he continues to control about half of the capital and the staff are also shareholders.

Talent in the US, especially in Silicon Valley and San Francisco, is very expensive and does not necessarily stay with the same company for long. The office will therefore be on the East Coast. Research and development will not happen in the US. ‘We are very happy with the team we now have in Belgium. They made Robovision great, AI is still a people business,” says Berte.

While in Europe Robovision has a major focus on horticulture, in greenhouses, in the US it is more about the extensive operations of agricultural companies with the large machines that go with it.

There are great possibilities for automation. In the American manufacturing industry, there is still a lag in automation compared to Europe, because for a long time more reliance was placed on cheap labor.

“There is enormous potential there,” says Berte. “There are a million and a half unfilled jobs in American factories today. That is a thousand billion in lost revenue, much of which can be absorbed by automation based on AI.’

‘The requirements to bring a top electronic product to the market are immense because everything is so miniaturized. Even the Apple Vision Pro headset still had teething problems.’

“It is about converting academic AI knowledge into industrial, robust systems,” is how Berte summarizes his company’s activities. Robovision’s business model is that of software-as-a-service, SaaS. But while this often concerns easily canceled monthly subscriptions to a cloud service, this concerns recurring income from regular customers.

“With this capital operation we have achieved better than what we need to implement our business plan,” says CEO Thomas Van den Driessche. The company now has 110 employees and has fifty recruitments in mind. The platform is still innovating, but marketing, sales and scaling up the product are now also crucial. Robovision is not yet profitable, it is still in the full growth phase.

Berte and Van den Driessche show themselves to be ambitious. The company aims to be the largest worldwide in software platforms for smart computer vision. “After the evolution from 1 million euros in recurring income to 10 million, this should increase to 100 million euros within five years,” says Van den Driessche. ‘We actually already have the prospect of 60 to 70 million in recurring revenue.’