London-based Seldon, a data-centric Machine Learning (ML) operations platform for the deployment, management, monitoring, and explainability of ML models, announced on Thursday that it has raised $20M (approximately €18.84M) in a Series B round of funding.
The round was led by Portugal-based Bright Pixel (former Sonae IM). Existing investors AlbionVC, Cambridge Innovation Capital, and Amadeus Capital Partners also participated in the round.
Bright Pixel is a technology investment fund of the multinational group Sonae, focussing on backing cybersecurity, digital infrastructure, and retail technologies. It has a portfolio of more than 50 companies, from early to growth stages.
Pedro Carreira, Director at Bright Pixel, says, “Seldon has differentiated itself by presenting a unique solution that is able to reduce the friction for users deploying and explaining ML models across any industry.”
“This means more productivity for its clients, faster time-to-value combined with governance, risk and compliance capabilities.”
What does Seldon offer?
Founded in 2014 by Alex Housley, Seldon aims to accelerate the adoption of Machine Learning to improve business performance and manage risk.
Businesses are making significant investments in AI, but many are having trouble scaling up their models for production because of various constraints in team workflows, increased regulation and compliance restraints, etc.
This is where Seldon steps in. The startup gives Data Scientists, ML Engineers, and other business partners the tools they need to accelerate ML usage and tackle these problems with “unprecedented efficiency”.
Alex Housley says, “AI is in everything, and Seldon is uniquely positioned to ensure a return on ML investment by providing robust, scalable and secure infrastructure, pioneering a data-centric approach to ML pipelines, prioritising team collaboration across the organisation and making sure teams are able to solve meaningful problems at scale by building trust in ML, even under the most intense regulatory conditions.”
According to Seldon, users have reported productivity gains of up to 92 per cent, saving millions of dollars on their ML projects.
It is powering the full production lifecycle in some of the biggest organisations such as PayPal, Johnson & Johnson, Audi and Experian, among others.
Capital utilisation
Seldon says the funds will be used to advance its suite of products’ data-centric AI strategy. The startup will also invest in customer success as well as strengthen the global support function.
The startup claims that since launching its series A in November 2020, its open-source frameworks have grown by 400 per cent Y-o-Y.
Following the raise, Seldon’s main focus is on its research, which was crucial in the creation of “innovative” products in cooperation with teams at Cambridge University.
According to Seldon, in the next phase of growth, it is focusing on four critical factors for AI success that matter to its customers. These include enterprise-grade infrastructure that is robust, scalable, and secure; unlocking the full value of data; streamlined collaboration across AI teams; and strong governance capabilities.
