New World Angels announced Wednesday its sixth and final investment in 2014, a record year for the structured angel group founded in 2003.
NWA, based in Boca Raton, invested more than $3.5 million in the six companies last year. NWA’s 6th investment of $507,500 was part of a $3.3 million round of seed funding in Paracosm, a cloud-based software company based in Gainesville with a mission to “3D-ify the world,” the angel group said. Other investors in the round included Atlas Venture, iRobot, Osage University Partners, BOLDstart Ventures and Deep Fork Capital.
Paracosm’s advanced three-dimensional reconstruction technologies create digital models of physical spaces. When shared with machines, these models serve as blueprints which provide robots and applications a greater sense of awareness and understanding of the physical world. Such technologies are valuable for robotics, video game development, special effects, indoor navigation applications, and for the improvement of both virtual and augmented reality experiences, the company said.
“Paracosm wants to take the digital world beyond screens and enable machines to understand the world as we do,” said Amir Rubin, founder and CEO of Paracosm, in a news release.
Other 2014 NWA investments included:
- * Kairos, an innovator in providing facial recognition functionality and capabilities to large enterprises;
- * OB Medical, a developer of a wireless, technologically superior fetal monitoring device which improves physician oversight and patient care during pregnancy and labor;
- * Clarke Industrial Engineering, creator of the ShutterValve, the first significant innovation in industrial valves in over 50 years;
as well as follow-on financing rounds in:
- * Bioceptive, a revolutionary contraceptive device which focuses on enhancing IUD safety, comfort, and ease of use; and
- * Aplicor, a cloud-based enterprise resource planning software provider for rapidly growing small & mid-sized businesses.
Noting NWA's record year for investments, Rhys L. Williams, the organization’s president and co-founder, said NWA now has more than 50 active members. NWA, which also has a chapter in the Tampa Bay area, typically makes investments ranging between $500,000 and $3 million. “In 2015, we look forward to continuing to support early-stage Florida companies in becoming the dominant leaders in their respective markets,” Williams said.
Posted Jan. 28, 2015