- Element AI raises US$102 million in Series A funding
- Funding to create new jobs, accelerate enterprise AI adoption and create powerful AI platform
- Singapore to be home to be its Southeast Asian hub, opening 2H17
Canada-based Element AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) company, has raised US$102 million, which it says is the largest Series A funding round for an AI company in history. With this funding, Element AI will accelerate its capabilities and invest in large-scale AI projects internationally.
The expansion in its international capabilities will see Element AI open a Singapore office during 2H17. The office will serve as a Southeast Asia hub. Singapore has a growing AI presence in the region, especially in the field of fintech, and also a sizeable talent pool. The Singapore office will be the company’s second office in Asia; the first is in Japan.
Besides being a target market for Element AI, Asia is a source of considerable funding. Both Tencent Holdings from China and Hanwha Investment from South Korea are significant investors in Element AI.
Data Collective (DCVC) led the funding round with participation from Fidelity Investments Canada, Hanwha Investment, Intel Capital, Microsoft Ventures, National Bank of Canada, Development Bank of Canada (BDC), NVIDIA, Real Ventures, and several of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds. In addition to laying the groundwork to hire hundreds of top researchers, this new funding will enable Element AI to aggressively expand on a global scale focusing on AI-powered solutions for their customers in cybersecurity, fintech, manufacturing, logistics and transportation, and robotics.
“Artificial intelligence is a ‘must have’ capability for global companies,” said Element AI CEO Jean-François Gagné. “Without it, they are competitively impaired if not at grave risk of being obsoleted in place. Seasoned AI investors at DCVC understood this, and supported us to democratise the AI firepower reserved today for only the largest of tech corporations. Intel, Microsoft, and NVIDIA, as pioneers and champions of AI hardware and software, likewise understand that their businesses flourish as every company is empowered with world-class AI. This is why these leaders have backed us with the world’s largest Series A round ever for an artificial intelligence company. This historic round will help Element AI deliver profoundly powerful AI platforms for all, not just the few.”
“The most serious problems facing global industry and government today involve too much complex and rapidly changing data for the cognitive capacity of even large numbers of human experts working together,” said DCVC Managing Partner Matt Ocko. “These groups - and the customers and citizens they serve - need intelligent systems that can work in concert with them to field that scale and complexity. We’re proud to back Element AI and their team of world-class researchers and engineers, who are already solving multiple global-class problems.”
“Intel is all-in on AI,” said Naveen Rao, VP & GM of Intel’s Artificial Intelligence Products Group (AIPG). “In addition to hardware, we’re committed to developing the software ingredients necessary to accelerate complex, data-intensive processes. Such an endeavour means investing in the best minds in the world and Element AI has the intellectual horsepower to help us all advance artificial intelligence like never before.”
“Element AI is doing amazing work enabling AI for a wide variety of industries, leveraging NVIDIA’s deep learning platform,” said Jeff Herbst, VP, Business Development at NVIDIA. "Element AI will benefit by continuing to leverage NVIDIA’s high performance GPUs and software at large scale to solve some of the world’s most challenging issues."
Element AI solves 'impossible' problems for global organisations that want to stay ahead of their competitors. Together with the Montreal Institute of Learning Algorithms (MILA). one of the three centres of AI research in the world, Element AI pioneered a unique, non-exploitative model of academic cooperation that they have since replicated to many other institutes. This model provides Element AI with insight, talent, and cutting-edge research that matches or exceeds that of the largest technology corporations’ reach and budgets.
- Funding to create new jobs, accelerate enterprise AI adoption and create powerful AI platform
- Singapore to be home to be its Southeast Asian hub, opening 2H17
Canada-based Element AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) company, has raised US$102 million, which it says is the largest Series A funding round for an AI company in history. With this funding, Element AI will accelerate its capabilities and invest in large-scale AI projects internationally.
The expansion in its international capabilities will see Element AI open a Singapore office during 2H17. The office will serve as a Southeast Asia hub. Singapore has a growing AI presence in the region, especially in the field of fintech, and also a sizeable talent pool. The Singapore office will be the company’s second office in Asia; the first is in Japan.
Besides being a target market for Element AI, Asia is a source of considerable funding. Both Tencent Holdings from China and Hanwha Investment from South Korea are significant investors in Element AI.
Data Collective (DCVC) led the funding round with participation from Fidelity Investments Canada, Hanwha Investment, Intel Capital, Microsoft Ventures, National Bank of Canada, Development Bank of Canada (BDC), NVIDIA, Real Ventures, and several of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds. In addition to laying the groundwork to hire hundreds of top researchers, this new funding will enable Element AI to aggressively expand on a global scale focusing on AI-powered solutions for their customers in cybersecurity, fintech, manufacturing, logistics and transportation, and robotics.
“Artificial intelligence is a ‘must have’ capability for global companies,” said Element AI CEO Jean-François Gagné. “Without it, they are competitively impaired if not at grave risk of being obsoleted in place. Seasoned AI investors at DCVC understood this, and supported us to democratise the AI firepower reserved today for only the largest of tech corporations. Intel, Microsoft, and NVIDIA, as pioneers and champions of AI hardware and software, likewise understand that their businesses flourish as every company is empowered with world-class AI. This is why these leaders have backed us with the world’s largest Series A round ever for an artificial intelligence company. This historic round will help Element AI deliver profoundly powerful AI platforms for all, not just the few.”
“The most serious problems facing global industry and government today involve too much complex and rapidly changing data for the cognitive capacity of even large numbers of human experts working together,” said DCVC Managing Partner Matt Ocko. “These groups - and the customers and citizens they serve - need intelligent systems that can work in concert with them to field that scale and complexity. We’re proud to back Element AI and their team of world-class researchers and engineers, who are already solving multiple global-class problems.”
“Intel is all-in on AI,” said Naveen Rao, VP & GM of Intel’s Artificial Intelligence Products Group (AIPG). “In addition to hardware, we’re committed to developing the software ingredients necessary to accelerate complex, data-intensive processes. Such an endeavour means investing in the best minds in the world and Element AI has the intellectual horsepower to help us all advance artificial intelligence like never before.”
“Element AI is doing amazing work enabling AI for a wide variety of industries, leveraging NVIDIA’s deep learning platform,” said Jeff Herbst, VP, Business Development at NVIDIA. "Element AI will benefit by continuing to leverage NVIDIA’s high performance GPUs and software at large scale to solve some of the world’s most challenging issues."
Element AI solves 'impossible' problems for global organisations that want to stay ahead of their competitors. Together with the Montreal Institute of Learning Algorithms (MILA). one of the three centres of AI research in the world, Element AI pioneered a unique, non-exploitative model of academic cooperation that they have since replicated to many other institutes. This model provides Element AI with insight, talent, and cutting-edge research that matches or exceeds that of the largest technology corporations’ reach and budgets.
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