We recently announced the close of our $123 million Series D funding round led by new and existing investors, including March Capital, Doha Venture Capital, B. Riley Venture Capital, AEI Horizon X, Temasek, Alan Howard, and Peter Löscher. As a result, we achieved a unicorn valuation of over $1.4 billion. The milestone emphasizes the value SparkCognition brings to customers across global industries, including oil and gas, renewables, cybersecurity, manufacturing, financial services, transportation, and government.
AI in the Physical World
Since our inception in 2013, we have been committed to commercializing AI and its practical application in the physical world. Still early in its evolution, AI redefines how businesses succeed and grow, enabling them to analyze, optimize, and learn from data to make informed decisions. Powering the next generation of AI, we allow enterprises to analyze massive datasets and bring context to data in real-time.
“SparkCognition has a proven track record of delivering AI at scale, partnering with the world’s industry leaders to drive profitable growth,” said Sumant Mandal, Co-Founder and Managing Director at March Capital. “They are at the front of this AI tsunami—helping businesses address their most critical challenges and enable digital transformation.
As a nod to our advancements in AI and enabling digital transformation, we were recently recognized as finalists in the BTOES Digital Transformation Awards. We had the answer when a global oil company came looking for help preventing stuck pipe events. We deployed our solution to drilling well operations, and as a result, detected 96% of stuck pipe events well in advance of the issue. This prevented downtime and damage to equipment and saved the operator upwards of $30 million each year.
This innovative solution led to our nomination as a finalist for the 2021 Digital Transformation & Operational Excellence (DTOE) Awards in the Best Achievement in Operational Excellence to deliver Digital Transformation.
Expansion and Growth
Completing three acquisitions in 2021, we expanded into the financial services, maritime, and renewable energy markets and added computational knowledge graph capabilities to our portfolio. Ambitious goals to advance the science of AI and push Austin to the forefront of AI innovation fostered the need for a physical hub to bring research and commercial applications together. We opened HyperWerx to serve as a dedicated space to develop and test exciting, new advancements in the world’s most promising technologies.
Manaa
In July 2021, we announced the acquisition of Maana, a leading digital knowledge platform firm. With the addition, we obtained computational knowledge graph technology, industrial expertise, and customers, including Chevron, Shell, Aramco, and Airbus, increasing our Fortune Global 100 footprint with multi-year software agreements. Our AI platform and Maana’s digital knowledge technology will shorten customers’ time to value in deploying AI-driven decision-making across the workplace.
Ensemble
In May 2021, we acquired Ensemble Energy, a leading provider of software products and services for the renewable energy industry. This acquisition allowed us to position ourselves as the world’s first AI-enabled asset management platform for clean energy, supporting the industry’s transition towards renewables by lowering costs and increasing production. Major energy companies have been making great strides to adopt more renewable practices and technologies.
We look forward to collaborating with energy organizations to help them reduce environmental impact, ultimately creating a better, more innovative, and more sustainable world.
AIM2
In February 2021, we agreed to acquire AIM2 from hedge fund management company Brevan Howard and the global investment bank Nomura. This acquisition allowed us to expand our capability further to transform market-making and quantitative investment strategy with cutting-edge artificial intelligence products in financial services.
HyperWerx
In May 2021, we opened HyperWerxTM, a first-of-its-kind aerial-terrestrial autonomy integration facility. HyperWerx sits on 50 acres in the greater Austin area and explores many facets of AI capabilities, ranging from developing robotics platforms and unmanned aerial vehicles to integrating terrestrial and aerial systems and extending to applications in commercial and defense industries.
The HyperWerx facility currently includes participation from key partners SkyGrid and SparkCognition Government Systems and will continue to enhance its partner ecosystem as it adds new capabilities. SkyGrid, a joint venture with Boeing, is the world’s first aviation operating system built on AI and blockchain. SparkCognition Government Systems is the world’s first full-spectrum AI company devoted entirely to government and national defense. Current and future partners of HyperWerx will use the facility to explore new systems and deliver cutting-edge solutions to their customers and partners.
A Glimpse of What’s to Come
By achieving this milestone, we continue to energize our mission to deliver world-class AI solutions that empower organizations to solve their most critical problems and run more sustainable, safer, and profitable businesses. This funding will accelerate sales and marketing efforts, strengthen research and development investments, expand the diversity of problems we solve for customers, and further organic and inorganic growth. We plan to hire an additional 150 employees this year, with a focus on hiring more subject matter experts in energy, financial services, manufacturing and government.
To learn more about SparkCognition, visit www.sparkcognition.com.
