The funding follows a $24 million Series B round raised in November 2020. Throughout 2020 and 2021, Apprentice helped drug makers keep production on-track despite pandemic imposed restrictions and transition their facilities to produce mRNA vaccines.. mRNA vaccines are the first large-scale application of cutting-edge cell therapies which require a profoundly different production process. Apprentice’s cloud-based manufacturing platform helped legacy facilities transform at a radical pace – directly supporting creation of an estimated 370 million COVID-19 vaccine doses and counting. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Apprentice experienced unprecedented growth including 12x annual recurring revenue growth, 516% net customer retention, and 6x increase in employee headcount.

“We had the right technology at the right time to help our customers keep making critical medicine and vaccines in unprecedented conditions. As the world continues to navigate COVID-19, we will help our customers adapt to new challenges” said Angelo Stracquatanio , CEO of Apprentice. “With the advent of cell and gene therapies, pharma is undergoing a transformation while coping with massive supply chain disruption. Our mission is to deliver modern technology that’s flexible, powerful, and regulatory-compliant so manufacturers can make these new therapies better, faster, and more reliably no matter the circumstance – to the benefit of patients everywhere.”

“As evidenced by their phenomenal growth, Apprentice alone has the modern cloud technology and mobile-first approach manufacturers need to keep their supply chains running during the pandemic,” said Abhi Arun, Managing Partner from Alkeon Capital. “We believe that they can bring life sciences into the modern era and help it transition to the therapeutics of the future. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with the team on this bold vision.”

Apprentice will use this capital to support pharma manufacturers for the duration of the pandemic, including scaling its operations, team, and platform to ensure supply chain adaptability. Already used by customers on five continents, the company will further expand in Europe and Asia. Apprentice will also launch the first cloud-native manufacturing execution system (MES), extending the success of its Tandem collaboration product, which gives remote colleagues a first-person perspective into what an operator is seeing and doing in-suite. The MES integrates augmented reality, voice recognition, and artificial intelligence into wearable, mobile, and desktop devices to offer a system that reduces human error and inefficiency across all three stages of production: pre-clinical, clinical, and commercial. Differentiated by its modern cloud infrastructure which enables a mobile-first approach, superior user experience, and no-code configuration, the MES has the flexibility to support the product and process development of the pre-clinical and clinical stages and the power to meet the scale and compliance of the commercial stage. With one manufacturing platform spanning the entire lifecycle, pharma manufacturers are better equipped to make next generation therapies through seamless transfer of process knowledge across teams and sites, real-time quality tracking, and reduction of production downtime.

About Apprentice
Apprentice’s disruptive technology helps pharma manufacturers get medicine to patients faster by providing one platform to turn molecules into medicine. The company’s intelligent cloud platform integrates augmented reality, voice recognition, and artificial intelligence into wearable, mobile, and desktop devices to offer a virtual collaboration application and a robust manufacturing and lab execution system that reduce human error and inefficiency in the drug production process. Learn how 15 of the top 20 US Pharma companies use Apprentice to accelerate high-quality production of drugs for diseases of all types, from COVID to cancer, at www.apprentice.io

Read Apprentice’s AREA member profile 

About Alkeon Capital
Alkeon Capital is a global investment firm that invests in private and public growth and technology companies and category definers. With more than two decades of experience focusing on People and Innovation, Alkeon works closely with disruptive private companies to help them expand their addressable market, scale efficiently, and seamlessly crossover to the public markets. Alkeon’s goal is to be a long-term and accretive partner to all its portfolio companies along their private and public journey.

Rockwell Automation is a multiple IoT Breakthrough Award winner, having won “Industrial IoT Innovator of the Year” in 2020 and  “Industrial IoT Company of the Year” in 2021.

With FactoryTalk Edge Gateway, manufacturers can easily access, understand and leverage the data needed to make informed decisions. The solution simplifies and automates collection, contextualization and organization of industrial-equipment data across machines, devices and automation assets at the source itself—enabling high data integrity from the outset. It also  provides the right foundation to drive edge-to-cloud IT/OT convergence at the enterprise level, resulting in informed decision-making.

FactoryTalk Edge Gateway software unifies data from industrial sources and control or automation systems. It is able to integrate with a variety of cloud, IIoT and big-data applications. It also uses OPC-DA, the automation industry’s standard for interoperability, to access KEPServer Enterprise data for third-party connectivity. This maximizes operational insights and provides a 360-degree view of a business, simplifying and automating data ingestion in a single integration solution for IT applications.

“Manufacturing processes and machines create tremendous amounts of data that, in the right place, with the right context, and at the right time can unlock new sources of potential value from analytics, machine learning, connected worker experiences, digital twins, and much more,” said Brian Shepherd, vice president of software & control at Rockwell Automation. “FactoryTalk Edge Gateway software simplifies the collection, contextualization and organization of OT data in a way that builds a high-integrity digital foundation for decision making. That foundation and ability to uncover new insights is what can help manufacturers achieve their performance goals.”

The mission of the IoT Breakthrough Awards program is to recognize the innovators, leaders and visionaries from around the globe in a range of IoT categories, including industrial and enterprise IoT, smart-city technology, connected home and home automation, connected car, and many more. This year’s program attracted more than 3,850 nominations from companies all over the world.

“Industrial enterprises struggle to aggregate operational data from heterogeneous sources and add relevant context from the source to the IT layer. This prevents them from uncovering potentially game-changing insights at the enterprise level,“ said James Johnson, managing director at IoT Breakthrough. “FactoryTalk Edge Gateway not only enriches OT data with critical context where it matters the most—at the edge—but also delivers it in a flexible common information model to IT applications, so that industrial enterprises can derive critical insights for competitive advantage. That makes it our choice for ‘Industrial IoT Solution of the Year.’ Congratulations for the third year in a row to Rockwell Automation.”

Visit Rockwell Automation’s AREA member profile. 

Another company, Brainlab, wants to make its Mixed Reality Viewer software available on Magic Leap 2.

That Magic Leap is making its latest wearable available to digital healthcare startups first isn’t surprising; CEO Peggy Johnson said as much would happen last April. “Augmented reality may transform healthcare more than any other industry, at least in the near term,” she said at the time, noting also that the company would focus on enterprise customers at launch.

Read Magic Leap AREA member profile

When there’s a need for an expert to inspect an oil rig or train someone to repair a vehicle, companies used to fly the expert in to do the task in person. More and more, though, companies are learning that when workers in the field are equipped with assisted reality wearables, the expert can help them from a remote location.

The “see what I see” capability of these devices with a head-mounted camera and display allow the expert in a remote location to see what someone else is seeing on site. The expert can also give the person wearing the device verbal instructions and visual instructions through the display. In addition, the person in the field can use the device hands-free.

This kind of “remote expert guidance” has been a common use case for RealWear equipment since the company’s founding five years ago, but it was accelerated when the pandemic prevented people from traveling. Now that more companies have experienced the alternative, and the savings in travel costs and experts’ time, many are likely to stick with it.

“We think this is the new normal, that not everybody needs to travel all the time,” Rama Oruganti, chief product officer at RealWear, told PYMNTS. “There are certain tasks that can be done remotely as long as you have the right point of view, you can see the things and you have the tools in place to make remote work possible in that way.”

Providing Information Without Distracting From Hands-On Work 

RealWear launched the latest generation of its industrial-strength wearables on Dec. 8. Assisted reality wearables like the new RealWear Navigator 500 incorporate the digital world but do not immerse the user in it or put it in the user’s field of vision. Instead, with assisted reality, the digital world is right below the user’s field of view, so they need only look down to see it — just as the driver of a car would glance down at the dashboard, Oruganti explained. In industrial uses cases that often include hazardous environments, it’s important that the user’s field of view not be obstructed, he added.

“Industrial frontline workers are the people who can use most of the helpful things that might come out of the metaverse,” Oruganti said. “So, we are trying to take those and put it into the hands of the people who need it the most.”

The RealWear Navigator 500 is two-thirds the weight its predecessor, so it’s easier to wear during an eight-hour shift; it’s two-thirds the width of the earlier device, so that the center of gravity is closer to the user’s temple and the perceived weight is lower; it’s rugged enough to be dropped from a height of 2 meters without damage, and it’s modular so the camera and display can be changed in the future.

Enabling Digital Workflow and Visual Assist 

Another growing use case for these devices involves inspections in which the user is on site and doesn’t need remote assistance. This “digital workflow” use case applies the product’s ability to respond to voice command and to record what the user sees. While inspecting equipment, for example, the user can mark off items on a checklist with verbal commands and can record what they’re seeing. Previously, this would be done by marking the items off on paper and later entering that information into a laptop.

“That was one of the big things we resolve,” Oruganti said. “One, you reduce paperwork errors; two, you save time, and three, you have visual documentation.”

A third growing use case for this equipment is “visual assist.” If someone is repairing a piece of equipment and needs to see the blueprint as they work, they can see it on the display on the wearables. What’s more, they can track around that piece of paper and zoom in on the part they need.

“It’s like someone’s holding a seven-inch tablet at arm’s length with that information for you, so that’s very helpful,” Oruganti said.

Displaying IoT Data When It’s Needed 

Assisted reality wearables can also display information from the sensors on a piece of equipment so that the user can see if a machine is too hot or spinning too fast, for example, without having to read the dial. The Internet of Things (IoT) data is funneled into the display and the user can see it when they want it.

“[Assisted reality] and [virtual reality] are going to be big — they’re already big and they’re growing fast,” Oruganti said. “The big immediate use case for a lot of people in the real world is going to be in industry. There are 100 million industrial frontline workers — the kind of people we are targeting — so we are trying to take the best in class of things that are applicable here without being distracting and without taking away their hands.”

In 2019, the European Manufacturing sector was responsible for an annual total of 880 million tons of carbon dioxide. This makes it one of the largest single emitters of greenhouse gases in Europe. While in the US, manufacturing accounts for almost a quarter (23%) of direct carbon emissions

With the current global spotlight being shone on climate change, countries and large corporations are having to agree to new climate regulations in the bid to reduce their carbon footprint, and are looking to innovative and complementary technologies that will help to reduce emissions, whilst future proofing their operations – including the adoption and deployment of extended reality (XR) technologies.

What is XR

XR (or eXtended Reality) is an umbrella term that encompasses the immersive Augmented (AR), Mixed (MR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies.

Understand the differences between AR, MR and VR

XR technologies allow data (for the point of this post, 3D CAD and PLM data) to be interacted with as a 3D digital representation in context, and at full scale.

How can XR make it green

On the surface, using XR devices may not seem like they are making much of a difference to an organisation’s green credentials. But small changes in the early stages of product development can filter through along the product’s lifecycle, from the initial design stages to the finished product rolling off the production line.

So where to use it…

Design reviews and prototyping

The design review process often starts with teams looking at a CAD design on a computer screen. However, you never quite get the full picture through a 2D monitor- it can be hard to imagine the true shape and scale of a product, and whether the ergonomics of a design will translate to a physical product.

Usually the next step is to produce 3D models of the product, sometimes at full scale or sometimes as a smaller representation. But either way, additional materials such as clay or foam are required. If the modelling phase needs more than one iteration of a model, then the amount of material used (and the waste product) adds up. And what happens to the models when they are finished with? Do they just get thrown away or are the materials repurposed?

By using XR technology, design reviews can be conducted in context and at full scale, giving designers and engineers the chance to make changes without having to build additional models. The changes can be made in the CAD system and then re-checked in the XR device.

This saves on physical design iterations and therefore the need for modelling materials, which in return reduces the waste produced as excess.

Training

XR is great for training. By practicing a process (such as the assembly of a component) virtually, if errors are made, materials are not wasted and machinery is not needed to be used. The training process can be repeated as many times as necessary. So when the operator is experienced enough, the materials and machinery should only need to be used once.

Collaboration

Today’s products are rarely developed with the luxury of co-located teams.  Globally distributed design is practically unavoidable, and increased home working is further adding to the challenge on effective collaboration between design teams.

By using the collaboration capabilities of XR to connect with globally located teams for processes such as design reviews and factory layouts, the need for previously required travel (including flights to visit various facilities) is redundant. With air travel being a major contributing factor to CO2 emissions, taking that need for travel away will make a difference to your green credentials (and your wallet!).

Starting small is still a start

Obviously there are changes that need to be made to manufacturing process on a grander scale in the attempt to cut emissions and waste, but these projects could take years to implement and cost a lot of money. Switching to XR for some smaller elements, like those mentioned above, may not make a massive dent in the fight against climate change, but its a good place to start.

Perhaps the most promising XR technology applications are found in manufacturing and industrial environments. Indeed according to PwC research, the use of VR MR and AR in product development could raise GDP by $360 billion by 2030.

When determining the optimal deployment strategy for these technologies, manufacturing and industrial business leaders should consider the following:

1. XR has the potential to improve the product design process
2. XR tech can aid in the process of production planning
3. AR is suitable for assembly lines

Examples are given in the article about immersive XR use including Google Glass and Microsoft HoloLens with examples from workers at GE. The original article can be read here.

With the Razor MR Glasses’ lightweight, all day wearable form factor, consumers can experience a total immersive metaverse solution. The applications available on the consumer MR glasses range from gaming and entertainment to telehealth and remote assistance. Game developers are creating multi-player metaverse apps for users wearing Razor MR Glasses, where they can view digital information overlaid onto a cityscape. Users can also watch movies or their favorite TV shows with spatial audio.

Repairs and appointments can be handled via the MR glasses as well. Consumers can use existing ThirdEye software, such as RemoteEye, to get real-time help from maintenance crews for fixing things at home or take an inventory of assets at home for insurance purposes. ThirdEye’s RespondEye platform can also be used to communicate with their doctors or caregivers remotely, allowing the remote doctor to view the patient in real time with AR annotations.

“Through the feedback we’ve received from customers since we launched in 2016, we’ve found there to be a great desire to bring our lightweight solutions and user-friendly applications, like RemoteEye, for home use as well,” said Nick Cherukuri, Founder and CEO of ThirdEye. “For the Razor MR Glasses, we wanted to accommodate a variety of needs. For example, these mixed reality glasses are lightweight and myopia friendly, allowing nearsighted users to adjust the Razor MR Glasses from zero to negative five diopters with a single twist of a knob on the side of the glasses. Now, no one will need to attempt stacking multiple eyewear pieces – as is needed with VR solutions, making it extremely comfortable for daily use.”

In addition, the Razor MR Glasses already support many metaverse applications that users can access in ThirdEye’s app store, including RemoteEye for any remote assistance aid and HIPAA-certified RespondEye for telehealth. The Razor MR Glasses feature a refresh rate of 70 Hz and two noise-canceling microphones to prevent lag and enable clear communication. The Razor MR Glasses can connect with most Android and iOS devices, including all phones that support display port (DP) output, laptops and tablets with a USB-C port, and gaming consoles through HDMI adapters.”

Foldable and lightweight at 85 grams, the Razor MR Glasses are comfortable to wear on the go or at home for extended periods of time. The glasses allow users to remain hands-free in a variety of activities, including interacting on their social media, utilizing a multi-purpose assistant, exercising with a personal trainer via a heads-up display coach, and immersing themselves in mixed reality games. The Razor MR Glasses run on the 9.0 Android operating system, boast a 43-degree field of vision (FOV) (equivalent to a 120″-inch display), and have an 8-hour battery life. Additional features for the Razor MR Glasses include voice control and a dual high-definition (HD) directional sound system.

The Razor MR Glasses have already received preorders from leading consumer and telecom companies.

The new Razor MR Glasses are currently in production and will be shipping later this year. Users can pre-order or receive more information at www.thirdeyegen.com or by contacting [email protected].

Read ThirdEye AREA member profile here https://thearea.org/area-members/thirdeye-gen/

The problem for many organizations is knowing what to look for in a Front Line Worker platform. AREA member Atheer has a solution for you. Atheer’s free Front Line Worker Platform RFP Template gives you what you need to get started. It offers recommendations of content and sample questions to help you identify needs and narrow down your evaluation criteria. Jump-start your Connected Worker platform RFP by downloading the Atheer Front Line Worker Platform RFP Template here.

Over the course of 2021, Big Tech went all in on immersive collaboration and anticipation certainly grew for a game changing XR device (or two) from Apple. 2021 was also the year of the word ‘Metaverse,’ which we see as any immersive world where you might have your next team meeting or interact with brands. Let’s see what the major players in enterprise XR unveiled and acquired this year:

AUGMENTED/MIXED REALITY

MICROSOFT

Microsoft’s activities this year made it clear the company is focusing on collaborative XR and, more generally, the future of work. In March, Microsoft announced Mesh, a new platform for building multi-user XR apps or shared virtual experiences connecting people in different locations. Mesh will be brought into Microsoft Teams in 2022, allowing colleagues to meet as avatars in mixed reality.

META (FORMERLY FACEBOOK)

Facebook rebranded as Meta in 2021 in a PR move to distance the company from controversy, or as leadership claims, to convey the company’s new aim of building the metaverse. Meta also made its AR entrance with a pair of glasses developed in collaboration with Ray-Ban. The company’s 10-year plan for AR, however, is much more ambitious, as revealed in a blog post from Facebook Reality Labs. This includes developing its own operating system for AR and a mixed reality headset code named Project Cambria.

On the VR front, Meta is eyeing the enterprise market: In addition to rebooting its business tools for the consumer Oculus Quest 2, Facebook surprise launched Horizon Workrooms in August, a VR meeting app for remote collaboration, and just this month released its latest avatar system to all Unity developers. If Meta’s intentions aren’t clear enough, nearly a fifth of its employees are now working on AR/VR. (Pay attention to the competition between Meta and Microsoft for top virtual collaboration solution in 2022.)

GOOGLE and CISCO

Both Google and Cisco made moves to make existing video meeting apps more immersive: In July, Google Meet became available to all Google Workspace customers on the Glass Enterprise Edition 2. A few months later, Cisco unveiled Webex Hologram. Cisco says its photorealistic, real-time holograms – as opposed to Meta’s avatars – make virtual meetings more realistic and engaging. In other Google news, new job listings recently revealed the giant’s plans to create a new “Augmented Reality OS” for an unspecified “innovative AR device” intended to reach “billions.”

MAGIC LEAP

Magic Leap has been hard at work on its next-gen headset Magic Leap 2, which is set to debut in 2022 and already being used by select partners through an early access program. Here’s what we know about the upcoming enterprise-focused device: Magic Leap 2 is reportedly half the size and 20% lighter than its predecessor, with a doubled field of view and 3-4x the processing power. Meant to be an “all day, every day” device, additional improvements include improved color fidelity, text legibility, and image quality. Magic Leap also raised $500 million in new capital this year.

LENOVO

In 2021, Lenovo introduced its ThinkReality A3 glasses: The Industrial Edition tethers to a smartphone via USB-C for use in manufacturing, energy, and engineering, while a PC Edition is geared more towards office workers. Lenovo also certified the RealWear HMT-1 for its ThinkReality platform, and announced it will offer RealWear’s HMT-1 family of devices through its global sales network.

Notable Mentions

IRISTICK revealed its Visor Ex-01 smart glasses for hazardous areas in 2021, while Vuzix introduced Vuzix Shield, its first binocular AR smart glasses. Campfire raised $8 million, as well, to build an integrated hardware and software platform partially on the bones of failed startup Meta. In July, the company announced it’s working on holographic collaboration.

VIRTUAL REALITY

PICO

2021 was a good year for Pico, which raised $37 million and launched its next-gen headsets. The Pico Neo 3 Pro and Neo 3 Pro Eye (which includes Tobii eye tracking tech) are priced at $700 and $900 respectively, undercutting both Oculus and HTC.

HP

HP’s Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition, first announced in September 2020, became available in May. Priced at $1,250, the headset provides a wealth of data that can enhance training applications, with sensors for tracking eye movement, pupil size, facial expressions, and heart rate. (Watch HP’s Elias Stephan speak about the Omnicept Edition at EWTS 2021).

HTC

HTC launched two VR headsets in the Spring, along with pro tools for enterprise. The $1,300 HTC Vive Focus 3 is a business headset with 5k resolution, spatial audio, a 120-degree field of view, and new controllers. HTC also unveiled Vive Business, a suite of tools for applications like training, meetings, design reviews, and more.

VARJO

In June, Varjo unveiled its Reality Cloud platform, which allows you to scan a room and share it in photorealistic detail with someone remotely in near real time (essentially teleportation). Varjo Aero, a $2,000 pared down version of Varjo’s XR-3 headset for smaller businesses and wealthy enthusiasts, arrived in October; and Varjo showcased Varjo Lab Tools with which users can bring parts of the real world into VR. In addition, a VR training solution by Varjo and VRM Switzerland became the first to receive approval from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, allowing pilots to earn credited training hours in virtual reality.

SOFTWARE

Remote Collaboration: Arvizio revealed Immerse 3D for iOS, Android, HoloLens, and Magic Leap, allowing users to interact simultaneously with the same 3D model in AR, for instance, during collaborative meetings on Microsoft Teams, Zoom, etc.

Easier AR: Scope AR lowered the bar for AR creation in enterprise with WorkLink Create, a browser-based AR platform enabling industrial professionals to author 3D content without coding.

Expanding footprint: TeamViewer acquired Upskill in 2021 and announced a partnership with Google Cloud to co-develop and market AR solutions built on Google Cloud. Assisted Order Picking is the first jointly developed solution, leveraging Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 and TeamViewer’s Frontline solution.

PTC & Matterport: In April, PTC announced Vuforia Engine Area Targets. With support from Matterport, Leica 3D scanners, and NavVis’ indoor mobile mapping systems. Area Targets allows users to create digital twins of large spaces (think factories, malls, etc.). The integration of Matterport with PTC’s Vuforia platform can enrich enterprise applications such as wayfinding, virtual training, and real-time information retrieval.

Eye tracking: With eye tracking becoming the standard for next-gen VR headsets, WorldViz announced both Vizard 7, a platform for academic research and professional applications that integrates with over 150 VR devices, and SightLab VR, a drag-and-drop tool allowing anyone to set up and run eye tracking experiments in VR.

QUALCOMM & NVIDIA

Among other 2021 highlights, Qualcomm revealed Snapdragon Spaces XR Developer Platform, a kit to help developers build head-worn AR experiences. (As of November, Lenovo’s ThinkReality A3 glasses are the only supported hardware.) Competitor NVIDIA expanded its Omniverse platform allowing designers and reviewers to work together in real time in a virtual world. Available through a $9,000 annual subscription plan, NVIDIA hopes Omniverse will deliver the foundation for the metaverse…at least in enterprise.

____

In summary:

–       Apple glasses rumors

–       Mark Zuckerberg’s philosophical musings about the future of social and work

–       The Metaverse

But really, pay attention to the remote collaboration space in 2022, which will likely be the first mainstream metaverse application in enterprise; and get excited for upcoming headsets like Magic Leap 2 and a return to San Diego for the Augmented Enterprise Summit 2022 (formerly EWTS).

COVID-19 has continued to create global supply uncertainties, disruptions, and inflationary forces which are forcing companies of all sizes to better manage their supply chains. Combined with the ongoing growth of online shopping, attaining new productivity levels for product transportation, inventory management and order fulfillment will become a distinct competitive advantage.

Smart glasses are becoming a cost-effective tool to facilitate these objectives and an increasing number of the world’s largest firms are starting to move from trialing them to deploying them.

“Vuzix has spent a fair amount of time and resources honing this technology and we are now seeing growing market adoption of our products that are allowing companies to operate with greater productivity. We are pleased to be working with this client, which represents just one of multiple major retailers either implementing or testing our technology for logistics and warehouse usage,” said Paul Travers, President and Chief Executive Officer at Vuzix.