VLC Developer Aims to Connect Hundreds of Millions of Robots
▼ Summary
– Jean-Baptiste Kempf, lead developer of VLC Media Player, raised $5 million for his startup Kyber.
– Kyber is an infrastructure layer for controlling remote devices in real time.
– The funding round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.
– Lightspeed also led Mistral AI’s seed round and invested in Anthropic.
– OVNI Capital and Kima Ventures also participated in the investment.
Jean-Baptiste Kempf, the lead developer behind the wildly popular VLC Media Player, has secured $5 million in seed funding for his latest venture, Kyber. The startup aims to build a foundational infrastructure layer for remotely controlling devices in real time, with an eye toward connecting hundreds of millions of robots.
The funding round was spearheaded by Lightspeed Venture Partners, the same firm that led Mistral AI’s record-breaking seed round and has since backed Anthropic. Additional participation came from OVNI Capital and Kima Ventures.
Kyber’s vision is to solve a critical bottleneck in the robotics and IoT space: reliable, low-latency communication between a human operator and a remote machine. Kempf, known for his work on the ubiquitous VLC player used by billions, is now applying his expertise in real-time media streaming to the control of physical hardware. The goal is to create a standard, open infrastructure that allows any device, from drones to industrial robots, to be commanded from anywhere in the world with minimal lag.
The timing is strategic. As autonomous systems proliferate, the need for a robust, secure, and scalable remote control layer becomes acute. Kyber’s solution could enable everything from telemedicine surgeries to remote warehouse operations, making it a critical piece of the future robotics ecosystem.
(Source: The Next Web)
