Why We Invested in Rhizome

Rhizome builds on-device continuous learning: models that keep getting better right where they run, with no round-trip to the cloud. We backed them on a simple read of the AI wave. It doesn’t shrink the edge, it overwhelms it. Real-time inference and on-device fine-tuning make latency-sensitive infrastructure more valuable, not less. Their edge comes from co-designing hardware and software, which is the sort of work you can’t fake with an API call. And the calibre of partner already at the table told us the technology held up.

Rhizome sits right in our Automation and Mobility pillars, in the edge-AI zone we chose to lean into. As agentic AI reprices the application layer, defensibility moves downward, toward firmware, on-device inference and the edge itself. That is home ground for Rhizome. When a system has milliseconds to decide and the network can’t be trusted, “good enough in the cloud” falls apart. Closing that gap is exactly what we backed them to do.

If your product has to think where connectivity is patchy or latency is unforgiving, whether that is a vehicle, a sensor or an industrial machine, Rhizome lets it learn and adapt on the device itself. No cloud dependency, no privacy trade-off. What you get is intelligence that keeps improving in the field, instead of going stale between releases.