Mindtech raises $3.25m for AI Vision Synthetic Data Training Platform
Mindtech Global, developer of the world’s leading end-to-end synthetic data creation platform for training AI vision systems – today announced closing a $3.25 million funding round.
The round was led by NPIF – Mercia Equity Finance, which is managed by Mercia and is part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF)*, with Deeptech Labs and In-Q-Tel participating. The investment will enable the company to accelerate product development at its new engineering base in Sheffield UK and support its growing customer engagements across Europe, the US and Asia.
Mindtech’s Chameleon platform delivers transformational technology to unlock the massive machine-learning / AI opportunity, specifically helping computers understand and predict human interactions. Current approaches to training AI vision systems require the sourcing and annotation of privacy compliant and unbiased real-world images in volume – a costly and time-consuming exercise.
Chameleon enables innovation and wider deployment of AI vision systems by democratizing training data. Using the platform, customers can quickly build unlimited scenes and scenarios using photo-realistic smart 3D models.
These are simulated and “filmed” creating fully annotated synthetic images that can be used to train AI vision systems and address diversity and bias issues. The datasets are privacy compliant and full data provenance is provided.
Mindtech has global customers addressing AI applications ranging across retail, the smart home, healthcare, transportation systems and robotics. Chameleon empowers customers to go-to-market with AI vision systems exponentially faster and more accurately than relying on real-world data alone.
Will Clark of Mercia said: “In partnership with the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, Mercia is excited to invest and support the transformational vision of the Mindtech team, through the growth of their Sheffield headquarters, enabling further platform development, identified during their significant customer engagements.”
Miles Kirby, CEO, Deeptech Labs said: “As a catalyst for deeptech success, our investment and accelerator program supports ambitious teams with novel solutions and the appetite to build world-changing companies. Mindtech’s highly-experienced team are on a mission to disrupt the way AI systems are trained, and we’re delighted to support their journey.”
Nat Puffer, Managing Director (London), In-Q-Tel said: “Mindtech impressed us with the maturity of their Chameleon platform and their commercial traction with global customers. We’re excited by the many applications this platform has across diverse markets and its ability to remove a significant roadblock in the development of smarter, more intuitive AI systems.”
Steve Harris, CEO, Mindtech said: “Machine learning teams can spend up to 80% of their time sourcing, cleaning and organizing training data. Our Chameleon platform solves the AI training challenge, freeing the industry to focus on higher value tasks like AI network innovation. This round will enable us to accelerate our growth, enabling a new generation of AI solutions that better understand the way humans interact with each other and the world around them.”
*The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund project is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and the European Investment Bank.
