African-founded InstaDeep, a leader in advanced AI
decision-making systems for solving real-world problems, says it has raised
$100M and closed a Series B round led by Alpha Intelligence Capital together with CDIB.
Investors in the round include BioNTech, Chimera Abu
Dhabi, Deutsche Bahn’s DB Digital Ventures, Google, G42 and Synergie.
InstaDeep will use the funding to advance its
high-performance computing infrastructure optimized for Decision-Making AI,
continue to hire elite talent and accelerate the launch of disruptive AI
products across multiple industries – including biotech, logistics,
transportation and electronics manufacturing. The firm will expand its global
presence into the United States.
A vast majority (81%) of executives say AI will either be
critically important or very important to their business in 2022, according
to CNBC’s latest Technology Executive Council survey.
African-founded InstaDeep helps companies improve crucial parts of their
operations by harnessing AI technologies such as Reinforcement Learning, a type
of machine learning that helps design effective optimization strategies for an
array of challenges, from therapeutics development to railway operations and
more.
“This funding round is a tremendous vote of confidence
from our partners BioNTech, Google and Deutsche Bahn after working closely with
us on innovative, high-impact AI initiatives” said Karim Beguir, Co-Founder and
CEO of InstaDeep. “And we are very excited to get the support of Alpha
Intelligence Capital, Chimera, Synergie and G42 as we see wide-ranging
opportunities to deploy our AI products to tackle complex real-world
problems.”
AI x Vaccines and Variants
InstaDeep and BioNTech formed a multi-year strategic collaboration in 2020 to
launch a joint AI innovation lab to deploy the latest advances
in Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to develop novel
immunotherapies. As part of this collaboration, the two companies created
an AI-powered Early Warning System (EWS) for detecting
high-risk SARS-CoV-2 variants. The EWS identified more than 90% of World Health
Organization designated variants on average two months ahead of time. It
detected Omicron on the day its sequence became available among more than
70,000 novel variants discovered in October and November 2021.
Google and Deutsche Bahn AI Collaborations
InstaDeep collaborates with Google on AI initiatives and
has published joint research with DeepMind and Google Research. InstaDeep is
also working on a moonshot product to automate railway scheduling with Deutsche
Bahn, the largest rail operator and infrastructure owner in Europe.
InstaDeep, now based in London, began in 2014 in Tunis in
North Africa, with two laptops, $2000 and, according to Beguir, “a lot of
enthusiasm”. From the start, he and Co-Founder Zohra Slim have made boosting
local AI communities central to InstaDeep’s mission, through events, training
and open-sourcing software. InstaDeep is proud to have engineers and
researchers in South Africa, Nigeria, Tunisia and the UAE alongside its teams
in France and the UK.
Boris Kuehn, Managing Director, DB Digital Ventures,
commented: “InstaDeep has demonstrated unique capabilities in solving very
complex railway problems using groundbreaking AI-first technologies. The team’s
skills and thought leadership in this space have paved the way for the adoption
of cutting-edge AI technologies in the railway domain. We are happy to join the
investment round and enable a stronger partnership with Deutsche Bahn to
jointly harness the potential of applying AI.”
Arnaud Barthelemy, Partner and COO, Alpha Intelligence
Capital, commented on the news saying: “As the first global fund fully dedicated
to artificial intelligence and machine learning, we are particularly proud to
have led this Series B round, together with first class co-investors. InstaDeep
is a deep technology company that disrupts traditional approaches in crucial
areas as they do with BioNTech for drug discovery or with Deutsche Bahn for
railway scheduling. We are thrilled to join this exciting adventure and eager
to help support InstaDeep’s growth through our unique AI expertise.”
