SmartGateVC discloses 2024 pre-seed backing for Perceptron AI
SmartGateVC joined a Bessemer-led pre-seed round for the physical AI company, disclosing the investment in October 2025.
SmartGateVC disclosed on October 16, 2025 that it had invested in Perceptron AI in 2024 through a pre-seed round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. The announcement did not give the round’s size or the investors’ individual commitments.
Perceptron builds models that connect language-based reasoning with visual understanding for robots and other physical systems. Its founders, Armen Aghajanyan and Akshat Shrivastava, previously worked on multimodal AI at Meta.
The company launched Isaac 0.1 in September 2025. The open model uses two billion parameters and supports tasks including locating objects in images and answering questions about visual scenes. Its compact design targets applications where computing resources are limited, including devices at the edge.