Founded in 2017 by Greta Cutulenco, Jean-Christophe Petkovich, and Sebastian Fischmeister, Acerta began with research on automated pattern recognition and anomaly detection in the world-renowned engineering laboratories at the University of Waterloo.
Recently, Acerta Analytics has raised $7 million (approx €5.8 million)in Series A funding led by OMERS Ventures, with additional participation from M12 – Microsoft’s venture fund, StandUp Ventures, Radical Ventures, EDC, and Techstars.
This funding will enable the company to launch into new markets, expand its team, and extend the capabilities of its platform to generate insights into automotive production and vehicle data.
Generated 94 petabytes (PB) of data in 2019
Since the vehicles are becoming more connected and instrumented, it generates more data. According to Acerta, the connected vehicles generated approximately 94 petabytes (PB) of data in 2019, while automotive manufacturing generated nearly ten times that amount.
As this immense volume of vehicle data increases, automotive engineers require new tools to manage and extract information from it. Acerta’s platform uses artificial intelligence to help automakers leverage their data for insights into vehicle assembly or on-road performance.
“Every automotive engineer has dealt with issues during assembly or testing, but few can use their production data to predict when and where those issues will occur and prevent them,” said Greta Cutulenco, CEO and Co-Founder of Acerta. “That’s why we’ve focused on providing predictive analytics to our customers to help them ensure vehicle quality, safety, and reliability.”
Increase in demand
The COVID-19 pandemic also creates huge pressure on automakers to digitise their processes, find new ways to reduce costs, and increase production efficiency. As a result, Acerta has experienced an increase in demand for its solutions. The company offers automotive engineers the tools to optimise quality, safety, and reliability throughout the entire product life cycle, from the assembly line to the finish line.
“Beyond digitization, the global pandemic has also forced vehicle manufacturers to focus on cost containment,” Cutulenco continued. “By identifying the earliest indicators of future product failures, our platforms are helping automakers reduce their scrap and rework rates and increase first time yield.”
Expanding to Europe and Japan
Acerta currently operates in Canada and the United States in North America, as well as Europe and Japan, with plans to expand further into the European and Japanese markets within the next year.
“Artificial intelligence has already played a huge role in stimulating innovation in the automotive industry, and it will continue to do so for many years to come,” said Brian Kobus, Partner, OMERS Ventures. “We’ve entered a new phase in the world of transportation, and Acerta is in a unique position to empower automakers around the world by enabling them to harness the power of their data to deliver valuable insights, drive ROI, and ultimately make better decisions for their business and customers.”
Main image credits: Acerta Analytics
