Investors
Funding raised to date: $55M
Funding raised in 2007: $49M (round B; round B2)
BBVA is a financial services group with more than $782 billion in total assets, 42 million customers in 40 countries and a market capitalization of approximately $95 billion. The BBVA Group maintains a leadership position in Spain, Mexico, and Latin America, and has started a growth and diversification strategy in Asia and the United States, where it recently bought Compass for approximately $9.6 billion.
Dalbergia is the diversified investment company owned by the Asensio family who also own Grupo Zeta the leading Spanish media conglomerate. Dalbergia has longstanding investment experience covering a range of financial investments including real estate, venture capital and private equity. Dalbergia has a successful track record in venture capital investments and has been behind the financing of some of the most successful TMT ventures in Spain.
Sequel R&D, SL (www.sequelresearch.com) specializes in the effective technology transfer of research results to emerging growth sectors. Sequel's investment objective is bringing artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to digital markets. Sequel leverages its partners' experience and understanding gained in inventing, designing, developing, promoting, and selling innovative products and services based on a range of emerging and innovative technologies.
Debaeque (http://www.debaeque.com/) is an independent venture capital firm, based in Barcelona (Spain) since 2001, dedicated to investments in Telecommunications and Life Sciences. DEBAEQUE has a unique and distinguished focus in the field of investment, with a special emphasis on generating business in its portfolio's companies.
Original Sponsors
Benton, Lane, Lincoln and Linn (BL3) Regional Investment Board
On February 23, 2005, Strands was awarded a grant for $30,000 by the Benton, Linn, Lincoln, and Lane Regional Investment Board (BL3RIB). The funding was provided to assist the young start-up in filling ten new positions in its Corvallis office. At the time the grant was awarded, Strands had only nine full-time employees in its downtown Corvallis headquarters. Today (January 2008), Strands has nearly 50 employees in Corvallis with over 100 employees worldwide, and is still growing.
MyStrands R&D Lab in Barcelona is a spin-off of the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA) of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC).
