Case Study:
Standing out in a crowded market and busy news cycle
Askasha Imaging is a computational imaging company offering perception capabilities and a proprietary vision system enabling robots to "see" with the help of AI, unlocking new potential for industrial robotics. In 2020, the startup received $10.75 million in Series A funding from Khosla Ventures and Sierra Ventures. As Akasha's chosen PR partner for this launch, Cogenta knew we had exciting news to push out, but it came at a bad time. Akasha was set to launch on the same day that C3, Airbnb and DoorDash all were scheduled to IPO, which surely would dominate the business news cycle. Also unfortunate, Akasha's funding announcement was going to hit during the critically busy Thanksgiving and December holidays.
Cogenta quickly pivoted strategy to reach reporters outside the general venture capital and funding ecosystem – casting a wider net on trade publications and AI-focused business reporters. By playing up Akasha’s polarized 3D technology, which was developed in the MIT media labs, and by positioning Akasha’s founder as a visionary tech expert, we secured interest from a top-tier reporter at Axios AI, whose feature article led to more coverage.
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In 2021, Akasha joined the team at Intrinsic, an Alphabet company.