SEATTLE, Jan. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Spare5 Inc.
announced today it relaunched the company as Mighty AI and raised a
Series A1 round of $14M. In addition,
Mighty AI signed agreements with Intel and Accenture (NYSE: ACN).
Intel will be able to promote and sell Mighty AI's training data
services to its global customers, and Accenture will recommend and
integrate Mighty AI's training data services for its global
clients.
Intel Capital led the round with participation from new
investors GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Accenture Ventures and
additional investment from Foundry Group, Madrona Venture Group and
New Enterprise Associates (NEA).
Relaunching as Mighty AI reflects the company's core business of
delivering the human insights artificial intelligence (AI) engines
need to see, hear, talk and "think" like people. Its Training Data
as a Service™ (TDaaS™) platform helps businesses obtain the
datasets they need to train and scale their computer vision and
natural language models.
"In the future, we will count on AI to make every aspect of our
lives better," said Mighty AI Founder and CEO Matt Bencke. "AI will manage our information,
schedules and energy use. It will make our factories, roads and
homes safer and more efficient. It will provide us each with a
personal shopper and investment advisor. But, for AI models to do
all this and more, they need to understand what and how we think.
Mighty AI is the critical link between computer and human
cognition, putting the right humans in the right learning
loops."
Mighty AI will use the new funding to extend both its TDaaS
platform and community of Fives—a network of tens of thousands of
individuals who conduct microtasks in their spare time, such as
identifying and labeling objects in images or doing sentiment
analysis of text. With the funding, Mighty AI will also grow its
team by adding new data scientists, engineers and product, sales
and marketing professionals.
"As our CEO, Brian Krzanich, has
said, AI is not only the next big wave in computing; it's the next
major turning point in human history," said Doug Fisher, Intel Corporation Senior Vice
President and General Manager of the Software and Services Group.
"Intel is investing in AI, with the goal of driving breakthrough
performance while making AI solutions more accessible and easier to
deploy for all. We see a significant opportunity across
applications such as automated driving, robotics, healthcare and
the Internet of Things. To produce high quality data for training
models to deploy, it is essential to obtain clean, accurate human
annotations at scale. With today's announcement, Intel is pleased
to team with Mighty AI to power the world's AI engines, operating
on Intel® architecture and guided by Mighty AI's training data
platform."
"As a leader in applying AI to both our own business and our
clients' businesses, we know that AI will drive the next wave of
business and societal transformation," said Paul Daugherty, Accenture's Chief Technology
& Innovation Officer. "Data is the fuel required to power AI
solutions, but many clients lack the right tools and solutions to
achieve the business value they are looking for from their AI
initiatives. By teaming with Mighty AI, we see a great opportunity
to break this bottleneck, accelerate the integration of training
data, and drive better business outcomes more rapidly."
Mighty AI's agreements with Intel and Accenture gives customers
better access to tools and services across the AI stack, also known
as the four components of any AI model:
- The infrastructure, such as the chips Intel builds;
- The large-scale mathematical algorithms that process tremendous
amounts of calculations in parallel to "think;"
- The training data that turns these blank slates into
simulations of human knowledge; and
- The application of the resulting AI models in interfaces that
make it easy for people to use.
With the new agreement, customers of Accenture and Mighty AI
will get a more streamlined experience as they execute across the
full AI stack to apply their models. The formation of the
relationship with Mighty AI was led by Accenture Ventures, which
focuses on teaming with and investing in companies that create
innovative enterprise technologies.
"We couldn't be more excited to team with Intel and Accenture,
both of which are second to none in their respective industries,"
said Bencke. "Our mission at Mighty AI is to tap the world's
potential brainpower so that our customers' AI engines have heroic
impact. Words matter, and today we declare that we operate the
world's best platform to make our customers' AI models mighty,
together with our industry-leading partners."
About Mighty AI
Founded in 2014, Mighty AI delivers
the human insights artificial intelligence (AI) engines need to
see, hear, talk and "think" like humans. Our Training Data as a
Service™ platform helps companies get the accurate, high-quality
datasets they need to train and scale their computer vision and
natural language models. Visit www.mty.ai to learn more, and follow
us at @mighty_ai.
About Intel Capital
Intel Capital, Intel's strategic
investment organization, backs innovative startups targeting
computing and smart devices, cloud, datacenter, security, the
Internet of Things, wearable and robotic technologies and
semiconductor manufacturing. Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested
US$11.8 billion in 1,478 companies
worldwide, and 617 portfolio companies have gone public or been
acquired. Through its business development programs, Intel Capital
curates thousands of introductions each year between its portfolio
executives and Intel's customers and partners in the Global 2000.
For more information on what makes Intel Capital one of the world's
most powerful venture capital firms, visit www.intelcapital.com or
follow @Intelcapital.
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SOURCE Mighty AI