ElementAI raises historic $137.5 million Series A round

Element AI, the Montreal-based artificial intelligence (AI) powerhouse, today announced it has raised $137.5 million ($102 million USD) in Series A funding, the largest in history for an AI company. The round was led by Data Collective (DCVC) with further investments from Real Ventures, Development Bank of Canada (BDC), Fidelity Investments Canada, Hanwha Investment, Intel Capital, Microsoft Ventures, National Bank of Canada, NVIDIA, Tencent, and several of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds. READ ALSO: Yoshua Bengio and friends launch'AI startup factory' The funding will allow Element AI to invest in large-scale AI projects internationally, solidifying its position as the largest global AI company in Canada and creating 250 jobs in the Canadian high tech sector by January 2018. Co-founded by serial entrepreneurs Jean-François Gagné and Nicolas Chapados, Real Ventures and Yoshua Bengio, a co-father of deep learning technology, Element AI aims to bring academic AI innovation to global organizations. Started in October 2016 to empower industry with the massive scale of academic AI innovation Bengio was driving at the world-leading Montreal Institute of Learning Algorithms (MILA), the two groups pioneered a unique, non-exploitative model of academic cooperation they have since replicated at many other institutes.