Technology

British AI Startup Faculty Raises $42.5M Growth Round Led by Apax Digital Fund

British AI Startup Faculty Raises $42.5M Growth Round Led by Apax Digital Fund

The British Artificial Intelligence (AI) agency has raised £30 million ($42.5M) from the faculty’s Apex Digital Fund (ADF) to fund growth. The startup has raised a total of £40 million ($56.6M) so far. In April of this year the agency announced that they had won an agreement to work with the NHS in the UK to further predict its future needs.

It has also accepted at least seven agreements from the UK government. Its clients include the UK National Crime Agency, Red Bull, Virgin Media and Moonpig. The company says it now expects to create more than 400 new jobs in its engineering, products and distribution teams. The investment will also be directed towards the rollout of new learning and development programs of the faculty. Founded in 2014 by Dr. Mark Warner, Dr. Angie Ma and Andrew Brooks, the company was known for its passion for higher levels of mathematics and data science PhDs.

Far from being an isolated research and DI AI operation, the faculty identifies itself as “AI as a Service” by re-applying its platform to world data for the purpose of real-world results such as optimizing marketing costs or predicting consumer content needs. That said, the faculty became briefly infamous after implementing its platform as a reason for voting holidays during the UK referendum. After helping the campaign win this battle, it has now been awarded a government contract to help the government implement machine learning in the next fishing waters in Britain, although the fishing industry is under considerable pressure due to BRACSIT…

Speaking to me by call, Mark Warner, CEO and co-founder of the faculty, told me: “It’s about doubling the UK first and then international expansion. We learned what it takes to make important, effective AI on a scale. And we just don’t think it actually exists. Customers are just a little skeptical at times. There has been hype around these things for years. We came up with a bunch of real-world apps that actually provide value. And so, in the end, the [we rose] money is able to grow into all the pieces to do incredibly good for our customers.”