BeyondMinds Aspires to Reverse AI Project Failure Rate with $15M Investment
BeyondMinds Aspires to Reverse AI Project Failure Rate with $15M Investment
(Image source: BeyondMinds homepage.)
BeyondMinds, an artificial intelligence startup developing what it characterizes as a universally applicable and easily adaptable AI solution, has raised $15 million co-led by Israeli venture capital fund Grove Ventures (Tel Aviv) and private investor Marius Nacht. BeyondMinds says the infusion of funds will finance its global expansion and the ongoing development of its AI solution, and strengthen its management team with prominent executives. The company aspires to accelerate the wide-scale adoption of AI by enabling its clients to successfully overcome the challenges that have prevented AI from proceeding “beyond” theoretical proof-of-concept exercises to robust and resilient deployments.
Rotem Alaluf, Co-Founder and CEO, BeyondMinds.
BeyondMinds, whose customer base including Microsoft, Samsung, KPMG, and numerous defense companies and financial institutions, says it will offer its “AI as a Service” solution to assist Fortune 1000 companies in the development, launch, and ongoing maintenance of their AI infrastructure.
The vendor says it aims to flip the current state of affairs where 87 percent of AI projects fail to reach production, according to Venturebeat, due to a failure to overcome real-world challenges. BeyondMinds says its end-to-end AI platform is constructed on a universal, modular technology stack that enables easy customization of specific AI applications. Unlike off-the-shelf AI models or systems developed in-house that often fail, BeyondMinds takes a new approach, stabilizing AI solutions in production where the data is dynamic and noisy, and deploying trust, monitoring, and feedback technologies to achieve increasing value over time, a vendor statement asserts. Typical applications include fraud detection, insurance claim automation, risk assessment, underwriting in the financial services industry and numerous additional use cases where AI is traditionally applied to solve core business problems.
“We are achieving wide-market adoption with a relentless focus on production,” comments Rotem Alaluf, co-founder and CEO, BeyondMinds. “We are excited by the breakthroughs being made on the academic level and have created an enterprise grade, scalable AI architecture to ensure production systems deliver business value from day one through day forever.”
Lotan Levkowitz, General Partner, Grove Ventures.
Alaluf, a deep learning specialist and graduate of Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, co-founded the company in 2018 with a seed investment from Prof. Ehud Weinstein and Dr. Ofir Shalvi, who are responsible for some of Israel’s most impressive exits including acquisitions by Apple and Texas Instruments.
“Grove Ventures is excited to co-lead the round and partner with BeyondMinds and its incredibly strong team of brilliant minds,” says Lotan Levkowitz, General Partner, Grove Ventures. “In recent years, we are monitoring AI innovation closely and the implications it will have on growing organizations. BeyondMinds’ technology is already gaining traction with some of the world’s largest companies, solving the most complex AI challenges for their customers as they successfully scale AI and gain a competitive edge.”
“We are happy to join and help the exceptional team at BeyondMinds to scale their business, and are excited to see how their innovative AI technology, groundbreaking approach and vision positively influence companies throughout their AI transformation,” comments Ophir Shoham, former Director of Defense R&D Directorate at the Israeli Ministry of Defense (MAFAT), who co-led the round on behalf of Marius Nacht. “BeyondMinds will help scores of companies attain the promise of AI, strengthen their business models, and dominate their categories.”
New Executive Appointments
As part of the expansion, BeyondMinds plans to invest significant efforts in supporting broad-scale adoption of AI in the U.S. market with the help of its newly strengthened executive team, including:
Ted Ranft, Chief Revenue Officer, BeyondMinds.
Chief Revenue Officer Ted Ranft, who is based in New York, will lead the worldwide sales expansion. He is a 25-year veteran of technology and software sales who has previously scaled businesses from $1.5M to $1.2B in annual sales including Unqork, AviNetworks, ServiceMax and VMware.
Perry Fetterman, also based in New York, is the Regional VP, Americas. He was previously the general manager of Americas of Kaltura, a leading open source video platform, and director of sales and customer success, America, at Evernote, a maker of team-building apps.
Chief Marketing Officer Sharon Reisner, based in Tel Aviv, has led marketing at a range of Israeli startups, including Tremor Video, a global leader in advertising technologies, and Conduit, the cloud-based technology provider that became Israel’s first billion-dollar internet company.
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