EnterpriseWorks

Cast 21, an EnterpriseWorks startup that makes waterproof, breathable casts, has closed a funding round of $800,000. IllinoisVENTURES is among the list of investors, who also include Memphis Biomed Venture Partners, Innova Memphis, Bindley Capital Partners, and an undisclosed number of angel investors reported Chicago Inno. Cast 21 was founded by three former University of Illinois students, who have been avid consumers of resources across the University of Illinois entrepreneurial ecosystem including the Cozad New Venture Competition, the iVenture Accelerator, and AWARE. They moved into the EnterpriseWorks incubator in August. Congrats to Ashley, Jason and Justin!

CHAMPAIGN— The News-Gazette’s Paul Wood interviewed Sanjay Patel for his Wired In column this week. Sanjay Patel is the CEO and co-founder of Personify and an electrical and computer engineering professor at the University of Illinois. Personify creates technology and products for video communication, and virtual and augmented reality. The company spent two years in the EnterpriseWorks incubator and is now located in Urbana. Read more about Sanjay Patel and Personify in the News-Gazette.

Reconstruct, a computer vision based analytics company for the construction industry based in the EnterpriseWorks incubator, has received $850,000 of seed round funding. The raise was led by Serra Ventures, which is also based in the University of Illinois Research Park, with Illinois Ventures joining as part of the syndicate. Reconstruct was founded by Mani Golparvar-Fard, an assistant professor of Civil Engineering and affiliate Assistant Professor of Computer Science at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). The company has been an enthusiastic participant in and consumer of entreprenuerial resources at the University of Illinois, including the I-Start program at EnterpriseWorks; I-Corps; and the Cozad New Venture Competition. ““Almost every large construction project experiences cost and time overruns.  Images captured by drones and other devices have the potential to improve efficiency, which translates directly to the bottom line.  Reconstruct is the only platform we have found that can turn those images together with BIM into actionable information about both actual and potential delays,” Serra Ventures Managing Partner Rob Schultz said in a press release.  Interested in learning more from CTO, Derek Hoiem? Visit the link.   

CHAMPAIGN – Veriflow Systems, an EnterpriseWorks tenant, has announced that they have raised $8.2 million in Series A funding. The fundraising effort was led by Menlo Ventures, and follows the nearly $3 million effort in April. Veriflow Systems develops an online network security software. They use verification technology to help protect networks against hackers and outages. Veriflow plans on using the funds to hire more engineers, work on its sales force, and boost their marketing across the industry. To learn more about this big invest read up on Yahoo! Finance.

Veriflow Systems, a startup based at EnterpriseWorks co-founded by two University of Illinos at Urbana-Champaign computer science faculty members, has announced a $2.9 million Series A funding round and a new CEO hire. The company, which has been in “stealth” mode, “uses mathematical network verification to help enterprises to prevent outages and breaches that lead to serious consequences.” The initial investor funding comes from New Enterprise Associates (NEA), the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense. Their aim is to help companies be able to verify the strength of their computer networks through a patented “lightweight virtual machine” that can offer extra eyes and ears to an IT team watching for errors and breaches,” wrote Chicago Inno. Other Media Coverage: SiliconANGLE Network Computing