Rithmio announces $3 million funding
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Rithmio, a Chicago-based gesture-recognition platform developer for wearables, announced $3 million in seed funding Tuesday.
KGC Capital and Intel Capital led the funding round. Other partners include Hyde Park Venture Partners, Hyde Park Angels, MAS Capital, Foley Ventures, OCA Ventures, Serra Ventures and New Coast Ventures.
The company, which spun out of the University of Illinois, will use the money mainly to hire engineering talent, CEO and co-founder Adam Tilton told Blue Sky on Tuesday.
Tilton said relationships with chip-maker Intel and clothing manufacturer MAS, through their venture capital arms, sets the company up nicely for future growth.
“We think Intel is the perfect strategic partner for what we want to do at Rithmio,” Tilton said. “And MAS is very excited about the future of connected clothing.”
Rithmio says on its website that its software helps product teams create “accurate and personalized gesture-based products.” The company says its technology “detects the unique nuances of how a specific person performs a gesture” and that its products evolve with the user.
As a Ph.D student in 2013, Tilton founded Rithmio with fellow University of Illinois researcher Prashant Mehta, a U of I assistant professor. The company is now based at Catapult Chicago, though it still has an office in Champaign.
In September, Rithmio raised $650,000 and used the money to build its seven-employee team, the company said.
Steven Holmes, vice president of the new devices group and general manager of the smart-device innovation team at Intel, said in the statement that Intel looks forward “to working with Rithmio as they push the boundaries of their solution.”
“Real-time analytics for user-specific physical activities represents a potential game changing technology for fitness, physical therapy, and rehabilitation applications,” Holmes said. “Intel is exploring a wide range of potential applications for wearable tech and gesture recognition.”
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