Lawrenceville safety software startup raises $7M

Technology will help self-driving cars ‘see’

Just because a self-driving car has the sensors to “see,” doesn’t mean it’s always an expert at identifying what’s in that picture.

Edge Case Research, a Lawrenceville-based startup, has built software that it believes will be key to solving that dilemma.

Machine learning helps the brain of an autonomous vehicle process data so quickly that it’s hard for humans to fully comprehend how it works, let alone identify what the system is missing, said Mike Wagner, CEO of Edge Case Research.

There are many situations where machine learning algorithms do not work as expected — whether that’s due to changes in lighting, road conditions or being approached with an oddly shaped vehicle.

“We call them ‘edge cases,’” Mr. Wagner said with a laugh. Hence the name of the company, which was founded as a CMU spinoff in 2014.

On Thursday, Edge Case Research announced that it has raised $7 million in seed funding.

Chris Urmson, CEO of the Lawrenceville-based self-driving startup Aurora Innovation, led the round of investing.

Other backers include Ansys, a simulation software firm headquartered in Southpointe, as well as Lockheed Martin Ventures, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures, Trucks VC and Blue Tree Allied Angels.

The funding will help Edge Case Research expand its team of 40 and take its product, Hologram, to market. It’s an intelligent safety

platform that helps engineers find out why autonomous vehicles systems miss certain objects in their field of view.

Hologram can “peer into” autonomy software to find situations that surprised the underlying machine learning algorithms. Then, developers can further analyze what went wrong.

If there’s a mother and a child entering a crosswalk at once, for example, Hologram may notice that the child wasn’t recognized as accurately as the adult was, Mr. Wagner said.

“If you’re in the car as the safety driver, you’ll see the people in the crosswalk and you’ll stop,” he said. “If you’re just looking at the outward behavior of the system, everything is kosher and you’re good to go.

“But if the adult hadn’t been there, maybe it wouldn’t have detected the child and wouldn’t have stopped.”

Mr. Wagner did not disclose the retail price for the commercial version of Hologram. He did note that prior to the Series A round, the company had a number of customers engaged in paid pilot programs to test out the software.

He expects Hologram will have enduring value.

“The world is always surprising you with situations,” Mr. Wagner said.