Tigard artificial intelligence startup Rapta raised a $2.7 million seed round and opened an East Coast office in the Orlando area to expand its reach into the aerospace and defense industry along Florida’s Space Coast.
Rapta has developed an AI platform that uses cameras and computer vision to help manufacturers achieve higher quality assurance results and fewer errors. It does this by watching an assembly and then alerting the human worker to correct or incorrect work.
“It’s a way to prevent in real time a mistake being made,” said CEO Aaron Brown.
Rapta started in July 2021. It is built off the experience Brown had from working for Stanley Black & Decker Inc., where he was part of an innovation team trying to apply AI and machine learning to heavy equipment manufacturing as a way to solve tactical problems on the factory floor. By adding an AI agent to the floor, Brown sees the software as augmenting the human worker and helping to relieve some of the burden of quality control. For companies, the tool — which is trained with a no-code interface — can alleviate training and labor issues, he said.
So far, the product appears to be resonating. The startup has dozens of customers and was selected to be part of the 2025 Northrop Grumman Technology Accelerator.
One customer, Canby-based analytical and measuring instrument maker Shimadzu USA Manufacturing, noted that using Rapta has cut the company’s inspection time by 54% and prevented more than 50 defects from shipping, according to a news release.
Rapta’s institutional investors include Portland Seed Fund, Phase Shift Ventures, SeedFunders Orlando, and Roadster Capital.
“As an early investor, Portland Seed Fund has been particularly impressed with Rapta’s team’s ability to gain traction among the defense industry’s most influential corporations,”
said PSF Managing Director Angela Jackson, in a written statement. “We are excited to play in this lucrative space with a seasoned team leading the way.”
The startup also has angel investors, including Ben Johnson, co-founder of Carbon Black; Ryan Permeh, co-founder of Cylance; and Portland entrepreneur Dennis Fritz, founder of DWFritz Automation. Brown expects to start raising a larger round later this year.
Rapta has a team of 14, with most of them in Oregon. Its new office in Cocoa Beach, Florida, has a team of three, Brown said. The Florida outpost was a strategic decision as part of the Northrop accelerator and to be close to current and potential aerospace and defense department customers, he said.
Source: Portland Business Journal, Portland Inno — Malia Spencer
