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Venture Capital News: CyPhy Works Lands $22M in Series B

2015-10-14
DANVERS, MA, Drone startup launched by iRobot co-Founder Helen Greiner, today announces the close of a $22 million Series B investment round.
CyPhy Works, the fast-growing drone startup launched by iRobot co-Founder Helen Greiner, today announces the close of a $22 million Series B investment round. The new financing was led by Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), and includes participation from strategic partners Motorola Solutions Venture Capital, UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, and Draper Nexus. Existing investors Lux Capital and General Catalyst Partners also participated in the round. In September 2013, CyPhy Works announced $7M funding led by Lux Capital.

'We are proud to add a successful global entrepreneur like Felda Hardymon and world-renowned VC firm like Bessemer Venture Partners to our existing team of high caliber partners,' said Helen Greiner, CyPhy Works Founder and CEO. 'We are also looking forward to working closely with our new strategic investors to accelerate adoption of drones into public safety, construction, agriculture, journalism, mining, defense, and other fields.'

'I'm also very excited to announce that this investment will fuel the commercial launch of our teth-ered Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications (PARC) vehicle system,' said Greiner. PARC is powered from the ground through a microfilament tether allowing 24/7 flight - a 'near-earth satellite system'. The tether also provides secure command and control and video transmission, precluding spoofing or hacking. PARC's extended flying time enables companies to make infor-mation-driven decisions using continuous real-time access to data and analytics.

'CyPhy Works has produced the first truly differentiated drone and as we see more industries lever-age this technology, we expect they will capture significant market share,' says Felda Hardymon, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, who as part of the investment, has joined CyPhy Works Board of Directors. 'Bessemer's mission is to back the world's most talented entrepreneurs, and we're very excited to partner with Helen and the experienced team of roboticists at CyPhy Works.'

In addition to the launch of PARC, the new investment will fund hiring in the engineering, sales, mar-keting, and customer support functions.

About CyPhy Works

CyPhy Works is a leading robotics company developing robots for large industries such as defense, oil and gas, agriculture, entertainment, law enforcement, and mining. CyPhy (pronounced: Sci-Fi) is a contraction of Cyber and Physical both essential elements to a robot. Our mission statement de-scribes our philosophy: Our community inspires; Our team creates; Our robots empower. For more information please follow us on Twitter HelenGreiner, CyPhyWorksInc and visit http://www.cyphyworks.com

About Bessemer Venture Partners

Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) invests in early-stage and hyper-growth startups, partnering closely with entrepreneurs to build durable businesses. BVP is a global firm with offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, Cambridge, New York, Bangalore and Herzliya. With $4 billion under man-agement, BVP invests anywhere from $100,000 to $75 million in innovative companies like Pinter-est, Twilio, Box, LinkedIn, Shopify, Yelp, Skype and CornerstoneOnDemand. Over 100 BVP com-panies have gone public - in the last three years alone, BVP has had 46 exits (IPO and M&A) and made new investments in more than 85 companies. Learn more at www.bvp.com and follow us on Twitter @BessemerVP.
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