The big story of the year for fintech, in my opinion, is the data story. The whole narrative around artificial intelligence and machine learning has surpassed blockchain, although that's still incredibly important, too, but SOOOO 2016. So, we're never surprised anymore when we see big sums of VC going to firms involved in data.
The latest to be added to that long list is Boston-based DataRobot which, according to their most recent press release, offers "an enterprise machine learning platform that empowers users of all skill levels to make better predictions faster." One client has stated that the platform "represents the true democratization of AI and machine learning". The fundamental premise is that they have automated AI and machine learning, which is really interesting.
While they don't publish pricing (and I think they should-just own it), they break it down in a simplistic way with four tiers - Development, Professional, Production and Enterprise Cloud - almost like what you find on sites like Mailchimp. The industries they serve include insurance, banking, fintech (woo hoo!), healthcare and energy.
From their 3/23 press release: DataRobot today announced the first close in its Series C financing. This secures an additional $54 million, bringing total funding to $111 million. A significant but undisclosed amount of additional funding is expected in an imminent second close of the round. Jeremy Achin, CEO and Co-Founder of DataRobot, sets out the company’s value proposition and the opportunity the funding provides:
“The number of AI and machine learning (ML) solutions being generated by all the data scientists in the the world is not even making a dent in the massive demand for these solutions, and this deficit is growing rapidly as executives across the globe–in all verticals–realize that an AI-driven organization is now a necessity.
It is now obvious that the only way to meet this demand is to automate the development of AI and ML solutions by teaching machines to do most of the work. This is exactly what we’ve been doing for the last 4.5 years. While DataRobot [software] can already solve many of the world’s AI and ML problems on its own, there are still many things we need to “teach it.” With this new capital we will double the size of our world-class data science and engineering organizations which will accelerate our ability to teach DataRobot to be faster and better at solving a wider variety of AI and ML problems.”