Artificial intelligence startup Starmind raises $15 million to scale its self-learning AI technology and accelerate global growth

Starmind is a self-learning AI technology that understands people and creates a “Digital-Self.” The company uses artificial intelligence to connect human expertise. It is one of Europe’s leading AI Tech company building self-learning networks to access human expertise. Today, the company announced the closing of $ 15 million in a major growth financing round. The round is led by Digital+ Partners. Focusing on rapidly growing B2B software and AI technology companies, Digital+ Partners is also actively supporting the company with access to global corporations and tech experts. Starmind plans to use the funding to Starmind design next generation algorithms and accelerating their growth throughout the global market.

“After proving that our company is able to compete and grow on our own in the hypercompetitive AI market, it’s now time to accelerate and expand,” said Pascal Kaufmann, one of the founders of Starmind. Having already built an impressive roster of clients, across industries and around the world, Starmind has had a record year with several highlights: Microsoft recently nominated Starmind as a technology partner in the field of AI as part of their international ScaleUp program. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) became a client in 2017.

Founded in 2010 by Marc Vontobel and Pascal Kaufmann, Starmind is a young company with roots at ETH Zurich. Starmind Technology enables organizations to gather the entire company knowledge across existing organizational boundaries, making it available to all employees everywhere and in real time. Starmind uses self-learning algorithms that are based on the principles of neuroscience. Each question of an employee is automatically forwarded to the right person within the company, who the algorithm has identified as the designated expert for that specific topic. Starmind is currently in use in over 70 countries by renowned companies from various industries.

Starmind is revolutionizing the field of artificial intelligence and cognitive computing. Starmind today has clients in more than 70 countries and runs a cash break-even business grounding on top clients such as Accenture, Bayer, Nestlé, Telefónica, major car builders, leading insurance companies, banks and first network clients such as experts within the UN, the red cross (ICRC) and other global organizations. Headquartered in Switzerland, Starmind was founded by Pascal Kaufmann and Marc Vontobel and currently has operations in the U.S. and Europe. Starmind allows organizations to gather company knowledge across existing organizational boundaries, making it available to all employees, everywhere and in real time. Using self-learning algorithms based on latest principles of brain and artificial neural network research, posed questions are automatically forwarded to the right person within the company. Starmind learns about interests and expertise, creating a self-learning knowledge network.

Starmind is expanding beyond the B2B realm opens new business opportunities with a significant scaling potential in addition to the untapped potential in the existing client base. “By the end of 2017, we clearly demonstrated that our technology outperforms the world’s leading AI algorithms in various text classification tasks,” said Marc Vontobel, CTO and the other founder of Starmind. “We are seizing on that positive momentum and significantly investing into the intelligence and API capabilities of our technology.” The new investor Digital+ Partners is an experienced growth equity investor, specializing in investments in fast-growing technology companies within the SaaS technology sector.

“Starmind is well on its way to become a global market leader in the field of artificial intelligence. We were particularly impressed by the company’s high-profile clients from a broad range of industries, its new kind of technology and innovation stack, the growth trajectory in both new and existing business as well as the significant potential for network effects in the business model,” said Thomas Jetter, Partner at Digital+ Partners. “The approach of Starmind to leverage human intelligence by means of the latest neuroscience inspired AI technology leads to strong commercial traction in Europe and North America. This new financing will provide a solid base for continued technology leadership and revenue growth,” added Patrick Beitel, Partner at Digital+ Partners. Starmind was advised by Event Horizon Capital & Advisory GmbH.

Digital+ Partners is an experienced growth equity investor focusing on market leaders in the B2B and SaaS sectors in Germany and internationally. Digital+ Partners plays an active role in the digital transformation of the broader industrial and financial technology ecosystems, providing growth capital and scale-up support to companies with the ambition to become world market leaders in their field. Digital+ Partners pursues investments in rapidly growing technology companies with proven products differentiated by software, data analytics and B2B online enablement. Digital+ Partners creates value by providing deep operational/strategic and corporate finance advice to the management teams of their portfolio companies in order to best define and execute their growth plans.