GV, a corporate venturing vehicle for internet technology conglomerate Alphabet, has led a $25m extension to a series B round for US-based robotics technology developer Ripcord that now totals $65m.
Telstra Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of telecommunications firm Telstra, also invested, as did venture capital-focused financial services provider Silicon Valley Bank and VC firms Icon Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and Lux Capital.
Icon Ventures had led the $40m first tranche of the round in August 2017, which consisted of $25m of equity financing and $15m of debt, investing together with KPCB, Lux Capital and Silicon Bank.
Founded in 2017, Ripcord has created a robotics system that helps clients organise their records and decide which ones should be retained. It claims the robot can turn paper documents into digitised files three-to-eight times faster than scanning them manually.
Ripcord had raised $9.5m in a March 2017 series A round led by KPCB that included Legend Star, the angel investment fund manager owned by of conglomerate Legend Holdings, as well as Lux Capital and angel investor Steve Wozniak.
Alex Fielding, chief executive of Ripcord, said: “Customers want both digitisation and an easy-to-use platform that helps them manage their entire records repository, whether it is comprised of paper files or digital ones.
“However, building a simple platform is actually quite complex. By partnering with GV we can take advantage of their expertise in artificial intelligence and machine learning.”