👀 Curing the Blind

How's it going my curious friends?

On today's agenda we've got computer vision. This branch of technology is the ability for machines to extract meaningful information from image and video data. This includes unique use-cases like object detection, face recognition, and image classification. 

The Co-Founders of Roboflow are Joseph Nelson and Brad Dwyer, both technologists that have previously built award-winning computer vision products. From tinkering with their own projects, they recognized the difficulty of creating a computer vision model. In that struggle, Roboflow was born, and on a mission to add computer vision to the toolkit of every software developer. 

Augmented Reality (AR)

I've got plans for a longer piece on augmented reality, but it's important for today's discussion. 

In our tangible world, we have devices that alter the perception of our reality.

For example:

• Sound - AirPods alter what your hear

• Touch - Haptics alter what you feel

• Vision - Screens alter what you see

Given technology already alters what we hear, see, and feel, it is likely there will be a world where a convergence device exists that overlays some form of a technological world over our physical.

The poster child for this technology is PokemonGo, but the experience had a significant flaw — The pokemon did not interact with our world. We'd walk around and a pokemon would appear on the sidewalk, but did not recognize context to jump in a puddle or climb a tree. The missing piece? Computer Vision. 

Joseph, the CEO of Roboflow, eloquently explains this in the pod below (45:49). 

In a world where a convergence device exists (likely some form of AR glasses), the technology must be able to intelligently recognize the context of our physical environment.

My guess is Roboflow is bringing us one step closer.

Enough with the Sci-Fi, let's talk company economics.

Addressable Market? Every. Single. Industry.

Straight from Craft Ventures' website — Roboflow models are used for all of the follow: 

• Power quality assurance at Pfizer for packaging essential products

• Recognize pills in pharmaceutical contexts

• Detect assembly defects in manufacturing

• Identify weeds and disease in agriculture

• Track fish populations with underwater cameras

• Manage inventory in retail

• Automate readings of glucometers and other patient health data

• Count office occupancy with Covid return-to-work

• Use drones to inspect the quality of electricity infrastructure

• Build robots that can automatically change tires

Every User is Effectively a Roboflow Engineer

Roboflow has the cheapest per "employee" cost I've ever seen. Here's the genius.

Every user of Roboflow does two things:

1) Discovers new use cases

AND

2) Improves the overarching computer vision model

So basically, you can think of every user as an employee of the company constantly improving the product and unveiling new use cases.

More customers, more value, more customers, more value. It's a flywheel. 

Customers

Roboflow has 50,000+ developers and half the Fortune 100 companies using its product. They've hit the holy duality (yes, this is a play on holy trinity):

1) Diversity - Their customers range from Walmart, the world's largest employer, to solo hobbyists. Diversity in size and industry.

2) Stickiness - Once a company begins to use Roboflow, it becomes an integral component of their tech suite. Roboflow usage grows as the company grows.

Early Investors

Accelerator — $0.2M raised

• Y Combinator

Seed investors — $2.1M raised

• Craft Ventures – SaaS Leader

• Lachy Groom – One of the first 30 employees at Stripe

Series A round was led by Craft Venture in 2021 — $20M raised

• Others in the A: Lachy Groom, Jack Altman, DJ Patil, Max and Sam Altman, Cassidy Williams, Harry Hurst, Greg Brockman, and Mike Maples

Let's Get You Employed 💼

Stuff they're doing sound interesting? Throw your hat in the ring.

SK's Weekly Rec 🤔

1. Want to learn about rocket engines?

2. Weekly Banger

3. Aswath is the finance 🐐

Catch y'all next time inspiration hits. Till then, chirp at me on the bird app.

Cheers,

SK – A writer with a curious mind and an appreciation for novelty.