Eliot Horowitz left MongoDB a few months after COVID started. He had helped cofound the database technology company more than a decade earlier, serving as the chief technological officer and shepherding MongoDB to an IPO and market cap of around $20 billion. But these were the early days of the pandemic, and while searching for his next project, Horowitz began to tinker around with different gadget projects: an automated cat feeder, a chess-playing robot, and a better sprinkler system for his backyard.
Horowitz had a realization: The hardware component of robotics was advanced, but the software was lagging behind. He spent a year trying to understand why there weren’t better platforms for programming practical tools in the physical world and decided to make the project into his next startup. He called up his old investors at Union Square Ventures to line up a seed round, and his new company, Viam, began to grow.
Five years later, Viam has raised $30 million for its Series C, Fortune can exclusively report, with USV leading the round and participation from Battery Ventures and the Italian investment group Neurone. The new round brings Viam’s total funding to $117 million, though Horowitz declined to share the valuation.
“Viam has, under Eliot's leadership, created an incredible platform that can really be that bridge between the physical world and AI,” Albert Wenger, the managing partner of USV, told me.
Every time there is an explosion in new technology, an abstraction layer comes around to make it easier to use. Horowitz pointed to new programming languages that emerged for mobile apps, Shopify for e-commerce, and Amazon Web Services for scaling web applications. He said the goal of Viam is to help companies manage fleets of hardware devices, from cameras to robotic arms.
Viam is already working with a number of different enterprise clients, including the New York Islanders’ UBS Arena on Long Island, which uses Viam to integrate cameras and point-of-sale systems around the stadium to direct visitors through its app to shorter lines.
Another focus area for Viam has been marine technology. Wenger experienced this use case when he went for a five-person sailing trip across the Atlantic. He used a hardware tool built by the boating company Canyon Runner and Viam that allowed him to tap into different sensors on his ship to update a website he built for the expedition with data like location, boat speed, and water temperature.
Though Viam had just raised a $45 million Series B last year, part of the quick new round was to bring on Neurone as an investor. Teodoro D'Ambrosio, a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Neurone, said that he first met Horowitz when Viam was raising its Series A. This new round was the right time for Neurone to come on board to help Viam with its European expansion, where there is ample green space to help companies with industrial automation. Viam will also be expanding its team to Italy with a focus on sales.
Still, the company’s roots are in New York, where Horowitz’s previous venture became a linchpin for the city’s tech ecosystem. Wenger told me that MongoDB proved to entrepreneurs and investors that a real tech company (or, as he put it, one focused on software infrastructure) could be built in New York City, at a time when he still faced skepticism for not moving USV out to California. “We didn’t have to go to the Valley,” Wenger said. “The Valley came to us.”
While Viam fits into USV’s broader investing thesis about the rise of AI, Wenger said that Horowitz’s success at MongoDB made backing the company a no-brainer. “I would’ve funded Eliot if his plan was to do something completely wacky, like selling ice cream on the North Pole,” he told me. “He would figure out a way to do it.”
Leo Schwartz
X: @leomschwartz
Email: leo.schwartz@fortune.com
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