Augment Ventures March 2025

Introducing Fund IV’s First Investment: Lincode

“AI Powered Defect Detection for Manufacturing”

Augment is extremely excited to introduce our first investment out of Fund IV: Lincode!

Lincode is a company that specializes in developing AI-powered inspection software for manufacturing industries. They have offices in Rochester Hills, Michigan, and Sunnyvale, California. The platform is powered by LIVIS, Lincode’s proprietary data library, which enables rapid deployment and high accuracy by leveraging millions of data points gathered across various sectors, eliminating the need for customer-specific training data. By providing real-time defect detection with minimal hardware requirements, Lincode helps manufacturers avoid costly line stoppages and reduce the risk of defective products reaching the market.

Unlike competitors that require extensive customer-specific training data to operate effectively, Lincode’s LIVIS library allows it to quickly implement defect detection processes, saving manufacturers valuable time and reducing the cost of missed defects or production line stoppages. Another core differentiators is its hardware-agnostic approach, which enables easy integration with existing camera systems and minimizes the need for new hardware investments. This flexibility, combined with Lincode’s ability to scale rapidly within existing customers, has already resulted in notable client successes.

The company was founded by Rajesh Iyengar, and Ritika Nigam who previously teamed up to start and eventually sell an AI and Data science company in the manufacturing space to KloudData. Said Rajesh on the investment:

“At Lincode, our mission is to revolutionize manufacturing quality control through advanced AI and machine vision technologies. By enabling real-time defect detection and predictive maintenance, we’re helping manufacturers achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency and accuracy. Our goal is to empower industries with intelligent automation solutions that minimize waste, enhance productivity, and drive sustainable growth. We’re incredibly excited to have Augment Ventures on board as an investor and look forward to accelerating our vision together.”

Last week Augment cohosted an event to celebrate International Women’s Day in collaboration with the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan. It was an evening filled with candid conversations and interesting stories with our featured guest Jen Baird, and special remarks from our generous sponsors: Chris Sing, from Rehmann, Linda Paullin-Hebden from Warner Norcross + Judd, and Kyle Johns from Independent Bank. Also, a heartfelt thank you to Bank of Ann Arbor for being our champions in this journey!We came together to recognize and celebrate women in leadership, with powerful insights shared by Sonali Vijayavargiya, Founder of Augment, Sarika Gupta, Managing Director at the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan, and Jen Baird, esteemed board director and experienced serial startup CEO. This marks our second consecutive Women’s Day event in Ann Arbor, following last year’s success, and we are excited to keep growing this incredible community.

With over 50 attendees from Ann Arbor and Detroit, the energy in the room was electric! As Sonali beautifully put it: “We don’t want to be lone flowers in a garden but a thriving forest—filled with women who inspire each other and excel in their fields.”

We’re excited to kick off 2025 with a brand-new episode of the Augment Expert Series, now live on YouTube!This episode features a special guest – Nikhil Soares, a long-time advisor to our team and a dear friend of our founder, Sonali Vijayavargiya.

Nikhil is a seasoned supply chain leader, currently serving as the Chief Supply Chain Officer at SimpleTire. With over a decade of experience, he has led supply chain design and operations for major global organizations. In addition to his executive role, Nikhil actively advises startups, helping them scale and optimize their operations.

In this episode, Nikhil shares insights from his journey—lessons in leadership, innovation, and the evolving landscape of supply chain management. Watch the full episode here.

Adni Named in a “Most Promising Early-Stage Digital Health Startup”
Since 2017, Galen Growth has been at the forefront of tracking and analyzing global Digital Health innovation. They provide data, analytics, and insights to identify and spotlight the most promising early-stage Digital Health startups worldwide. With over 50,000 Digital Health companies, including more than 15,000 startups, and nearly 1 billion data points the company selected their 2025 edition of The Most Promising Early-Stage Digital Health Startups. We are excited to share Adni was featured on the 2025 list. To see the full list click here.

Pair Team CMO Interviewed in Business Insider Article on CMO’s
In the wake of the pandemic and amid a booming health tech market, health tech companies — and even tech giants like Google and Salesforce — have been adding the CMO role to their ranks, and poaching physicians from hospitals in the process. In a Business Insider article written by Amanda Hoover, Pair Team’s Nate Favini shares his perspective on being a Chief Medical Officer at a rapidly scaling company. To read the article click here.

Sonali Named in “10 Women Leaders and Entrepreneurs to Know”
On International Women’s Day Purpose Jobs released an article celebrating 10 women who are building each other up, supporting underrepresented groups, and looking toward the future. Their hope is the stories of these 10 women will inspire the next generation of women leaders and entrepreneurs. We are excited to share Augment Ventures Founder, Sonali Vijayavargiya, was featured as one of the 10 leaders to know. To read the article click here.