Dallas entrepreneur Dave Copps new venture is coming out of stealth mode with $10 million in backing from the venture funds of two energy giants and an Austin private equity firm.

Copps company, Worlds, is developing an artificial intelligence platform with applications for the energy industry. Its being spun out of Hypergiant Sensory Sciences, a division of Hypergiant Industries founded by Dallas serial entrepreneur Ben Lamm. Hypergiant designs AI tools to help companies decipher big data.

The funding round led by Austin-based Align Capital brought in the investing arms of oil giants Chevron and Petronas. Hypergiant Industries is also an investor.

Worlds technology combines artificial intelligence and internet of things capabilities in a 4D environment, giving companies what it describes as active physical analytics. The company is led by Copps and Chris Rohde, who launched and sold two previous machine learning and AI companies. Brainspace, one of their prior startups, sold in 2016 as part of $2.8 billion deal to turn a large footprint of data centers and several companies into a global cybersecurity firm.

Barbara Burger, president of Chevron Technology Ventures, said its investment in Worlds reflects a belief that digital innovation plays a critical role in accelerating business value at Chevron.

Its also the first disclosed investment by San Francisco-based Piva, a recently launched venture capital firm and Petronas subsidiary that operates independently from the Malaysian company, according to tech web site Axios. Piva is looking to invest its first $250 million fund in disruptive energy and industrial startups.

Piva CEO Ricardo Angel wrote in a blog post that hes long been impressed with Copps and Rohde.

Weve seen them build great teams, great companies and great technologies before, and weve been highly looking forward to seeing what they do next, he said.

AI and automation companies like Worlds will play a critical part in industrys future, Angel said.

Were seeing many corporations in verticals such as oil and gas, manufacturing and logistics, investing in hardware solutions often generating too much data without getting valuable insights, he wrote. As the number of IoT devices continues to grow, so will the need for AI and machine learning solutions to help manage the massive influx of data these devices will create.

Worlds funding round continues the fast start this year for Dallas-based startups in attracting growth capital. At least $86 million in funding has flowed into the region in the first five weeks of the year.

North Texas startups and early stage companies attracted more than $753 million in growth capital last year, up nearly 35% from $560 million in 2018, according to data compiled by the National Venture Capital Association and PitchBook.

Link:

Dave Copps' stealthy AI startup emerges with $10 million in backing - The Dallas Morning News