When the machine learning renaissance started in 2013 – thanks to the development of new graphic processing units accelerating data processing by over 100 times – Frans Cronje and Daniel Schwartzkopff started positioning themselves to fill the gap in the South African market. "Daniel and I met while doing our undergrad studies at the University of Cape Town and collectively came up with the idea to start an artificial intelligence (AI) company," says Frans Cronje, the managing director of DataProphet. "At the time there was hardly any competition in the field and skills were scarce, as you could not even study machine learning here." They initially offered machine learning consultancy services to retail, manufacturing and finance companies and from there catapulted into the products market when they started DataProphet in 2015. "We were relatively new to the game. Working as consultants helped us gain valuable experience and insights into the common challenges faced by these industries, which in turn allowed us to create service solutions for these challenges," says Cronje.