As consumers wait for the Internet of Things to round into a marketable and affordable form, startups are hard at work making sure that the next level of IoT functionality is ready and waiting for those early adopters brave enough to try something new. With more money in its pocket, Neura is just one such startup with a new take on IoT.
Neura, an Israel-based IoT personalization startup, announced Monday (Jan. 18) that it had finished a Series A funding round for a total of $11 million. AXA Strategic Ventures and Pitango Venture Capital led the round, though Liberty Israel Venture Fund and Lenovo Group also chipped in to Neura’s new warchest that CEO Gilad Meiri plans on using to grow his company’s vision — that a truly personalized IoT ecosystem shouldn’t have to be the goal of only big companies with the data processing capabilities to make it happen.
“Currently, data only serves the interest of major corporations,” Meiri said in a statement. “The actual generators of data, the users, have no say in what impact this data has on their life. Customer data is bought and sold on the common market, and the lack of transparency in the current system is troubling. We have built our platform on a foundation of transparency and a commitment to making personal data work for the sake of users. We are building the engine that can make smart technology smarter without sacrificing the trust of our users.”
While Neura is the star of the show, Lenovo’s participation in the funding round shouldn’t escape notice. VentureBeat explained that the computer manufacturer might see the potential to boost its own IoT capabilities in partnership with Neura, or at the very least, staying close to Neura provides Lenovo with an opportunity to see how things should be done in IoT going forward.
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