When it comes to funding, 2019 is all set to end on a good note for Krakow startups. A diverse variety of Krakow-based startups have been successful in raising funding this year drawing interests by the investors and VC funds that had earlier restricted themselves to Warsaw and other big cities.
The latest Krakow startup to join the ‘Funded in 2019’ list is Luna. In the seed round, Luna obtained funds from investors such as Kima Ventures, Black Pearls and Passion Capital
As a result, the start-up received $2.5 million for development. In total, to date, Luna has received support from five VC funds and five private investors. The uniqueness of the system has been recognised by people such as Artur Waliszewski, Regional Business Director (CEE) at Google, and Kuba Filipowski, the founder of Netguru.
About the Notable Investors
Kima Ventures, EU based Micro VC Fund, is one of the world’s most active early-stage investors, investing in 2 to 3 startups per week all over the world. The firm invests from seed to Series A.
Black Pearls VC is an early stage venture capital firm based in Poland that focuses on deep tech and enterprise software. Black Pearls VC has invested in over 30 companies in Poland and the Baltic Sea Region
Passion Capital is an early-stage VC firm in London. They have been involved in the largest European technology exits of the past decade, including Skype. Interestingly, this is the first time that this VC firm has backed a Polish startup!
What does Luna do?
To put it simply, Luna is a revolutionary data science platform and programming language that lets everyone visualise big data easily. Just like Microsoft Exel made using mathematical functions super simple, Luna lets you present your data visually that makes it easy to understand.
In all businesses, there are technical (IT, development) and non-technical departments (sales, marketing etc) that need to work together to make the company successful. The developers are essential and can produce important code but the non-technical people will not understand the complex code. This is where Luna comes in! It can present the complex big data in a variety of charts and drawings that makes the data easy to understand for everyone.
Luna recognizes that people need to visualise information to understand it and for each particular data type they need highly tailored tools to manipulate it. It is much easier to understand pointers on a map, charts, or a CAD drawing than long list of numbers and coordinates.
Below is a more technical insight on Luna and its functions
Luna is a programming language that successfully links two worlds – that of programmers and specialists, such as analysts or managers who use data, e.g. for the purposes of business development. The system provides unprecedented real-time dialogue between coded information and images. if one has to delete rows with unstructured data, Luna can automatically create formula that can be used by programmers to automate the process. It provides great possibilities and allows users to test many hypotheses on the spot, without having to learn programming, enabling them to develop optimal solutions tailored to their individual needs much quicker.
Dataflow programs that allow you to visually build data flow graphs have been commercially successful for years in various industries, including computer graphics, electronics design, mathematical systems modelling, and sound processing. However, existing systems have many limitations. Luna is completely different. In fact, it is the only programming language in the world with dual representation – visual and textual. It has been designed in such a way to be expandable and applicable in many areas. Its versatility and ease of implementation mean that it can become a new standard on the market, says Marek Cieśla, Head of Business Development at Luna.
How Will the Seed Fund Help Luna?
“Luna has been recognized by Singularity University and NASA as one of the 20 most breakthrough technologies in the world.”
What Makes Luna So Innovative?
The versatility of Luna, apart from its adaptability to many situations and types of activities, as well as supporting users of various specialisations, also lies in its unparalleled compatibility with many other programming languages. Using GraalVM technology, Luna can use libraries in Python, R, JavaScript, C, C++, Rust, or Java, without compromising speed.
Another thing that makes Luna unique is the use of GPU instead of CPU to display a large amount of data. It’s like moving from old Atari to Playstation 4 where the full graphical spectrum data visualization takes place. Moreover, with a view to further increasing user-friendliness, the Luna team is constantly improving on the application intuitiveness, speed and reliability, as they work towards the 2.0 release. The team includes Robert Gentleman, creator of the R programming language, who works as VP Technology at 23AndMe, a well-known biotechnology start-up from Silicon Valley.
The version currently available on the market is Luna 1.9. Similarly to all versions of the desktop system, it is released under an Open Source license (Apache 2.0), and is free for all users.
About the Founder of Luna
Wojciech Daniło, the CEO and Founder of Luna, is a serial entreprenuer who has been featured in the prestigious 30 under 30 by Forbes. He is the alumni of Krakow’s famous AGH University.
He gave an insightful talk on the future of data visualization at one of the events organised by OMGKRK in Krakow. Watch the video!