Worldwide revenues for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) market are forecast to grow 16.4% in 2021 to $327 billion (approx £235 billion). By 2024, the market is expected to break the $500 billion (approx £360 billion) mark.
A spinout from the University of Cambridge, named iKVA, is poised to play a key role in the booming AI market.
Secured £1.5 million
iKVA (formerly known as Kvasir Analytics), has secured £1.5 million in seed funding from Cambridge Enterprise, Crowdcube, and other institutional investors. Back in 2018, the company raised £175K pre-seed funding.
iKVA will use the funding to begin the rollout of its unique artificial intelligence technology and create new jobs.
Spinout from the University of Cambridge
Founded in 2017, iKVA emerged from a University of Cambridge research project led by Dr. Liang Wang, leading computer scientist Professor Richard Mortier and Professor Jon Crowcroft who is also affiliated with the renowned Alan Turing Institute.
Uses AI to locate internal and external knowledge
Using advanced Machine Learning, NLP and Semantic technology iKVA’s solutions solve the problems of working with siloed unstructured data from almost any source including document archives, email, chat, and video.
According to the company, its solution is suited to multinational firms in which staff work across multiple locations and platforms, often in different languages,
The technology is already used by global engineering giant Mott MacDonald, claims the company.
The CEO of iKVA is Cambridge-based Jon Horden who has more than 20 years of experience in the digital industry. He has previously held senior roles at Monster.com, British Gas’s digital division ‘Local Heroes’, and HomeServe.
Jon Horden, CEO of iKVA, said: “Having the ability to surface internal knowledge blended with external sources is now a major priority for large organisations that employ thousands of staff using multiple platforms to store their data, information, and knowledge.
“iKVA enables people to instantly access this knowledge and helps them work smarter and faster. iKVA expands the pool of knowledge within an organisation and enables people to get intelligence and information faster and more accurately in real-time, as they are working.
“The unique way that iKVA collates and presents knowledge means it’s perfectly scalable and easily adaptable to bolt-on to existing infrastructure and other software platforms and that’s what investors and the marketplace can already see at this early stage in our development.
“We’re pleased to confirm this latest round of investment and we’re looking forward to engaging with senior decision-makers to see how it can be integrated into their organisations.
“We’re on a mission to make sure there are ‘no unknowns’ within a large organisation and this latest investment takes us another step closer to achieving our objective.”
James Thomas, the Senior Investment Associate at Cambridge Enterprise, added: “We are always pleased to see research outcomes getting turned into commercial operations which will make an impact in the business world. iKVA is no exception to this and is a good example of a venture that is perfectly timed as companies continue to invest in AI tools that will give an edge over the competition.”
Jon Rains, Investment Director at Mott MacDonald Ventures, said: “20-30% of our time is spent searching for information. Using a solution like iKVA represents a productivity saving of around $2m a year and we’ve seen the practical and commercial benefits. As an early adopter of the technology, we’re pleased to see iKVA receive this investment to continue the good work it’s done so far in making a positive impact on our people and practices.”