Last June, SparkCognition, one of Austin’s leading AI companies, raised a $32.5 million in a Series B led by Verizon Ventures and Boeing HorizonX.
Today, the company announced it has closed that Series B with $56.5 million in funding — adding another $24 million since June’s initial round. Joining in the investment were CME Ventures, Brevan Howard Investment Holdings Limited, Invenergy Future Fund, John Chambers, CEO of JC2 Ventures, Cisco chief development officer Pankaj Patel, and an undisclosed investor from the financial services industry.
“We are grateful for the many successes to date, but SparkCognition is still in the very early phases of realizing its potential as a transformative company,” said Amir Husain, founder and CEO of SparkCognition, in a statement. “We are honored to gain numerous industry-leading investors and receive support as we rapidly grow to take our place at the forefront of the ‘AI 3.0’ revolution.”
The funding will be used to continue to support SparkCognition’s accelerated growth in employee headcount and new business verticals. The company, founded in 2014, has about 140 local employees and another 40 open positions spread across development, design, data analytics, product, marketing, operations and sales.
SparkCognition is still in the very early phases of realizing its potential as a transformative company.”
Husain credited his team for SparkCognition’s success since launch.
“We are staffed with incredibly intelligent and diverse individuals who share the common mission to make a meaningful difference in the field of artificial intelligence and for our collective future,” Husain told Built In Austin at the beginning of the month. “It is inspiring to be part of this remarkable team.”
SparkCognition’s machine learning solutions help predict, detect, protect and analyze risks and breakdowns with equipment and assets in energy, oil and gas, manufacturing, finance, aerospace, and defense and security. Its products can be deployed via the cloud or directly on devices, giving clients the ability to package their assets preloaded with AI functionalities.
“SparkCognition brings tremendous value to power and industrial operators through the company’s SparkPredict machine learning diagnostics technology,” said Amy Francetic, managing director of the Invenergy Future Fund, in a statement. “The Invenergy Future Fund is proud that Invenergy and other forward-leaning members of our network are now piloting the technology on nearly 1,100 turbines across the United States.”
