Paris-based SESAMm bags €35M to help companies to extract critical insights from internet through AI

Paris-based SESAMm, a startup that enables companies to extract critical insights from the internet with AI, announced on Wednesday, March 1, that it has closed €35M in a Series B2 round of funding.

The round was co-led by Elaia, a deep tech VC firm, and Opera Tech Ventures, the VC arm of BNP Paribas.

Asset manager Unigestion, Raiffeisen Bank International’s venture capital entity Elevator Ventures, AFG Partners, CEGEE Capital, and historical backers, including Carlyle and New Alpha Asset Management also participated in the round. 

The latest round brings the total funding raised to €50M.

SESAMm says it will use the funds to further expand into US and Asian markets, support technology development to generate AI-powered ESG and sentiment analytics, and hire key talent across sustainability, technology, sales, and marketing.

Sylvain Forté, CEO and co-founder of SESAMm, says, “We are happy and grateful to close this €35M Series B2 round to continue our growth journey and expand to new international markets such as Singapore. Raising a significant amount during challenging market conditions highlights the relevancy of SESAMm’s focus on two key trends: AI and sustainability. In turn, these tools enable organisations to make better decisions and fill the data gaps, particularly in ESG, on both public and private companies.”

SESAMm: Natural language analytics data provider

Founded by Sylvain Forté, Pierre Rinaldi, and Florian Aubry in 2014, SESAMm is a natural language analytics data provider serving global investment firms (top private equity firms, hedge funds, and other asset management companies) and corporations.

The French company analyses more than 20B documents in real-time to generate insights for controversy detection on investments, clients and suppliers, ESG, and positive impact scores, among others.

The Investors

Elaia is a venture capital firm specialising in funding early-stage technology companies. The firm focuses on software, internet, and digital media startups.

“We are delighted to support SESAMm’s ambitious journey to leverage deep technology and create actionable data insights on ESG analysis and monitoring. The vision of bringing technology to the Finance industry and the corporate world to empower with ESG insights is a game changer, and we are very excited to be part of the adventure by their side,” says Pauline Roux, Partner at Elaia.

Opera Tech Ventures is BNP Paribas’ VC arm, launched in 2018 to invest in startups that transform or disrupt the financial industry.  

The VC supports entrepreneurs building ambitious ventures from Series A to Series C with investments ranging from 3 to €15M.