Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund is investing in another NC-based startup

D.C. venture firm Revolution‘s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund led a $20 million Series A funding round in partnership with Breyer Capital, Greycroft and Digital Alpha Advisors for Raleigh, N.C.-based Pryon Inc. Previous investors including BootstrapLabs, Engage, Good Growth Capital and Two Sigma Ventures also participated in this funding round.

Pryon has raised $20 million to automate enterprise workloads with #AI: “@Pryon is delivering solutions to empower employees and enterprises to tackle the challenges brought on by this next wave of technological progress," says @SteveCase. #RiseOfRest https://t.co/b1N57WqtAY

— Rise of the Rest (@RiseOfRest) June 17, 2019

The North Carolina-based AI tech startup develops augmented intelligence for enterprise employers. The company plans to use this latest round of funding to develop its core product, grow its roster of Fortune 500 customers and develop strategic partnerships, a press release states.

“There is an opportunity for organizations to revolutionize their workplaces by giving employees the power of AI at their command,” CEO of Pryon Igor Jablokov said in a statement. “We fill the market space between emerging technologies that are difficult and expensive to implement and existing products that are designed for simple rules-based services.”

Pryon’s tech aims to combine the best capabilities of machines and people, in order to deploy AI tech while reducing the complexity, cost and duration of the process. Some of the company’s notable partners include AT&T, Delta Air Lines, Chick-fil-A, UPS, Home Depot and The Goldman Sachs Group.

This is Rise of the Rest’s second North Carolina-based investment this month. Just a few weeks ago, the fund participated in a $4.73 million seed round for Fluree, a startup that provides a blockchain-based data management platform to help companies gain a competitive advantage while saving cost when competing in the data-driven economy.

When Revolution launched its $150 million seed fund in 2017, it made a commitment to partner with other regional investors on a deal to contribute about 10-20 percent to a startup’s seed funding round. Though it said it wouldn’t seek to lead funding rounds, this investment into Pryon is led in partnership with other investors to stay true to that.