Spear AI, a leading developer of maritime artificial intelligence solutions, announced the successful completion of its seed funding round with investments from Scare the Bear Capital and Cortical Ventures. The funding will support the expansion of Spear AI’s product portfolio, scaling of its Horizon platform, and the growth of its specialized maritime sensor capabilities, while also broadening its technical and subject matter expert services in applied data and AI.
Spear AI provides an integrated suite of solutions and services that combine cutting-edge software, modular sensors, and highly specialized engineering expertise. In addition to its flagship Horizon platform—which manages and labels acoustic data for AI development—Spear AI offers subject matter expert and technical expert support services to design, implement, and operationalize AI pipelines and data infrastructure. The company’s teams of machine learning engineers, data engineers, software engineers, cloud architects, and operational subject matter experts have a track record of developing and fielding applied AI capabilities for national security missions, including advanced MLOps pipelines, reinforcement learning platforms, and mission-critical decision support tools.
“This investment is a validation of our vision to transform maritime data into actionable intelligence,” said Michael Hunter, co-founder and CEO of Spear AI. “Scare the Bear Capital and Cortical Ventures understand the urgency of delivering operationally relevant AI at the edge, and their support enables us to accelerate delivery to our defense and commercial partners.”
Also Read: ServiceNow and CapZone Partners on Digital Solutions for Mission-Critical Manufacturing
“Our mission has always been to close the gap between emerging AI technology and real-world mission demands,” said John McGunnigle, co-founder, Executive Chairman, and CTO. “This funding enables us to grow our technical services and engineering teams to help more partners build the data and AI capabilities they need to operate faster, safer, and smarter in the maritime domain.”
Spear AI is already working closely with the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Navy, with plans to expand both commercially and internationally in the coming years.
“At Scare the Bear Capital, we look for companies that have exceptional leadership and opportunities to significantly grow their products or services within the Federal Government. With Spear, we found both,” said Matt Dean, managing partner, Scare the Bear. “Our group of advisors and I are incredibly excited to partner with John and Mike to help them achieve their vision for Spear.”
“I had the privilege of working with John when I was at DataRobot and he was with the Navy, and I’m excited to work with John and Michael because they’re exactly the type of founders we look for: capable, mission-driven, and experts in their field. I believe the best companies to invest in operate at the intersection of opportunities to (a) save the world and (b) generate significant returns, and Spear is a clear example of that,” said Jeremy Achin, cofounder and general partner, Cortical Ventures.
SOURCE: PRNewswire