New York tech startup Aquant lands $70 million Series C funding to revolutionize the service industry using AI

New York tech startups have seen a jump in funding activity since the beginning of the year. In 2020 alone, venture-capital firms pumped $5.8 billion into New York City enterprise-technology startups, with startups developing cybersecurity, robotics artificial intelligence, and machine learning technologies among those getting the biggest shares of the investments.

One of the fastest-growing startups in the state is Aquant, a provider of an enterprise AI platform that uses machine learning to learn the enterprise’s unique language and maximize equipment uptime. Aquant gives service leaders, reps, and teams the most vital information they need for every situation.

Today, Aquant announced it has raised $70 million in Series C funding to support the growth and advance its industry-leading service intelligence technology. The round was led by Qumra Capital, Insight Partners, and Pitango Growth. Other backers included previous investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Angular Ventures, along with new investors Schneider Electric Ventures and Claltech.

To date, Aquant has now raised a total of $110 million. The company said it will also use the proceeds from the fresh funding to support its rapid growth and expand use cases as it strengthens its position as the service intelligence leader in every market for every company that provides service.

Founded in 2016 by two Israelis Assaf Melochna and Shahar Chen, Aquan uses machine learning to learn clients’ enterprise’s unique language and use it to maximize equipment uptime, prescribing and diagnosing both service and warranty issues as well as anomaly detection: 20 years of professional experience, in 20 seconds.

Through AI and machine learning, Aquant enables companies to make smarter, faster, data-driven decisions by providing predictive, actionable service recommendations. Operating in a $647 billion-dollar market, Aquant was built by industry experts with a passion to help companies eliminate the unplanned downtime of their products in the most profitable way.

Aquant works across a number of industries, including medical device manufacturers, food equipment manufacturers, capital equipment manufacturers, industrial automation, and appliances. Its customers include  Siemens Healthineers, The Home Depot, 3D Systems, and Sysmex, among others.

To accelerate its global expansion, Aquant will grow its engineering, client services, and go-to-market teams, adding positions in the US, Europe, and Israel. The funding will also drive the continuous innovation of its Artificial Intelligence platform, including the development of cutting-edge technology that combines structured and unstructured data and harnesses the tribal knowledge of experts.

“To win the service game today, it’s not enough to just solve problems anymore,” said Shahar Chen, CEO and co-founder of Aquant. “Companies must also provide a stellar service experience. And when providing a stellar experience, service becomes more than just “maintenance” for customers – it becomes magic.”

Using deep service expertise and specialized Natural Language Processing (NLP), Aquant understands all service data, combines it with tribal knowledge, and provides service leaders, technicians, and reps with the most vital information they need, exactly when they need it.

Service has largely remained the same for decades but is now at a turning point. Companies are seeking to transform the way they deliver service, with service leaders expected to deliver exceptional service to differentiate the brand. They are also being asked to provide customer insights, derived from service data, to help executives and front-line managers make strategic business decisions across all lines of business, including service, product development, sales, and more.

Aquant’s proprietary service intelligence platform harnesses Artificial Intelligence to ingest unstructured data, tribal knowledge, and industry insights. This combination gives service leaders meaningful insights into the state of their organization, enabling them to make data-driven decisions. It also empowers service technicians to be at the right place with the right knowledge and the right parts at the right time to solve technical problems immediately. Making every Aquant-powered customer experience a magical service interaction.

“Aquant is revolutionizing service intelligence and is well-positioned to lead this large market given their domain expertise and data savviness. Their technology enables companies to focus on what they’re good at, alleviating one of the most serious business challenges today,” said Sivan Shamri Dahan, managing partner at Qumra Capital. “We’re very excited to partner with them as they continue their rapid growth in order to significantly improve service experiences.”

Service intelligence solves an increasingly problematic talent shortage in the field service industry, providing new hires access to decades of technical knowledge, account data, and service history at their fingertips. As Baby Boomers continue to retire from technician roles and younger Millennial and Generation Z employees fill their positions, sharing knowledge and employing data effectively will be increasingly important.

“We look forward to working with our new investors as we enter an important growth phase,” said Assaf Melochna, president and co-founder of Aquant. “The service industry is on the cusp of once-in-a-lifetime advancements, and helping these companies transform service by providing critical business insights is built into Aquant’s DNA.”