DataProphet, a South African company that offers AI-as-a-service software to the manufacturing industry, has now completed a $10 million Series A round of funding. The company was founded by Frans Cronje and Daniel Schwartzkopff that offers.
Leading the Series A round was Knife Capital. Through its KNF Ventures Section 12J fundraising vehicle, the South African venture capital firm made its initial investment in DataProphet at the beginning of 2018. Knife Fund III, the planned $50 million fund that was started last year to promote the global expansion of its portfolio firms, has made its first investment in this most recent round.
The CEO of the business, Cronje, stated that DataProphet began concentrating in 2017 on offering manufacturing plants end-to-end prescriptive AI to increase their yield.
To prevent manufacturing the flaws that force manufacturers’ products to be destroyed or redone, the company offers prescriptive guidance and suggested improvements to manufacturers’ recipes.
According to the business, it’s lead artificial intelligence product, PRESCRIBE, has assisted clients to have a significant and useful influence on the manufacturing floor, lowering the cost of non-quality by an average of 40%.
Manufacturers employ DataProphet at various stages of their digitization processes; the collection and centralization of data are essential to get them going.
DataProphet’s CONNECT, the first product in its stack, enables manufacturers to upgrade their data infrastructure and move data from where it has been used for compliance in the manufacturing sector to a point where it can be used for improvement.
On its platform, the company presently ingests around 100 million unique data points per day. PRESCRIBE can use this information to advise decisions that will decrease flaws, waste, or subpar procedures and increase manufacturing yield.
According to Cronje, DataProphet takes a hands-on approach, regularly monitoring data streams and pushing recommendations and comments to the operational floor to make sure that its customers implement them.
Additionally, the business interacts with customers to understand their problems in situations where they don’t heed the advice DataProphet offers.
The 50-person team primarily works with clients in the automotive, semiconductor, rubber, and foundry industries, deploying its solution to factories in South Africa, the United States, Japan, China, and India. Braincube and Seebo are a couple of its foreign rivals that are not local.
Given the cutting-edge nature of DataProphet’s technology, Keet van Zyl, co-founder, and partner at Knife Capital, commented on the investment that it couldn’t be more appropriate for its first investment to be a follow-on investment from our current cohort given the purpose of its new Fund.
IDC of South Africa and Norican, one of the biggest manufacturers of metal surface preparation and completing equipment worldwide, are other investors in the round. In a statement,
DataProphet claims that the injected funds will enable the company to make more investments in its industrial AI product line while enabling focused growth in particular geographical areas and manufacturing industry sectors.
Techbuild’s Take
Incorporating technology that can rapidly analyze information so that businesses can act in a short amount of time rather than months would put them on top of the competition in an age where data is gathering more rapidly than ever. Through third-party services like DataProhet, AI as-a-service may be implemented quickly and cheaply.
The cost of developing an internal team of AI specialists is higher, and the hiring process can be difficult. Since AI systems reinforce any prejudices of their creators, employers must assess candidates for technical expertise, inventiveness, financial savvy, and an uncompromising sense of ethical and moral commitment.
Manufacturing firms are finding it easier and less expensive to bypass the drawn-out process of trying to acquire a qualified individual thanks to platforms like DataProhet.
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