# Start Smart Labs

> Start Smart Labs is a VC fund in Palo Alto backing Machine Learning and Enterprise Software. See 2 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Palo Alto, United States
- Total investments: 2
- Last investment: Sep 2016
- Lead investor: 0%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rstata
- Website: http://www.startsmartlabs.com/

Start Smart Labs is a Big Data Incubator for startups that are developing data-intensive applications on Hadoop and Spark. Start Smart Labs was founded in 2012 and is based in Palo Alto, Californi.

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Machine Learning | 2 | 100% |
| Enterprise Software | 2 | 100% |
| Artificial Intelligence | 2 | 100% |
| Software | 1 | 50% |

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 1 | 50% |
| Funding Round | 1 | 50% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Gamalon | Gamalon is a developer of an AI-based machine intelligence technology designed to write and rewrite their own Bayesian programs. The company's technology accelerates machine learning and converts streams of text paragraphs into structured data rows by linking, enabling e-commerce platforms and manufacturing companies to train the system on fewpieces of data and achieve the same level of accuracy as that of the exhaustively trained neural networks. | $4.4M |  | Sep 06, 2016 |  |
| MinHash | MinHash has created AILA. AILA brings the power of artificial intelligence to uncover emerging trends that are relevant and actionable. AILA detects fast growing topics across 1000s of media sources and helps marketers respond quickly, pulling together data in all forms - text, images, hashtags and urls, automatically crafting them into a campaignwith a relevant theme, unique messaging and the right audience. |  | Seed | May 12, 2015 |  |

2 of 2 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Boston Seed Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/boston-seed-capital) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Felicis](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/felicis-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Rivas Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/rivas-capital) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## Similar investors

### Similar stage
- [Antler](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/antler-be9c) — VC Fund
- [Alumni Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alumni-ventures-group) — VC Fund
- [Right Side Capital Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/right-side-capital-management) — VC Fund

## FAQ

### What does Start Smart Labs invest in?

Start Smart Labs invests primarily in Machine Learning, Enterprise Software and Artificial Intelligence startups, most often at Seed and Funding Round stage. Most of the 2 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### When did Start Smart Labs last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Start Smart Labs closed in Sep 2016. Shizune tracks 2 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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