Montreal-based Element AI, which develops artificial intelligence-powered software solutions, announced this morning it has raised US$151.4 million in a massive Series B round. Founded in 2016 by a team of six partners including serial entrepreneurs Jean-François (JF) Gagné and A.M. Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio, Element AI is described by lead investor Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) as "a company with a commercial focus that anticipates and creates AI products to address clients' needs." In its own words, Element AI "turns research and industry expertise into software solutions that exponentially learn and improve" and are adapted to specific industries with a primary focus on the financial services and supply chain sectors. Its offering, which includes advisory services, AI-enablement tools and products, aims to help large organizations "operationalize AI and create real business impact." Customers include LG and National Bank, among others.

Element AI, a company that builds artificial intelligence (AI) tools for enterprises, has raised CAD $200 million (USD $151 million) in a series B round of funding from a host of existing and new investors, including Gouvernement du Québec, Data Collective (DCVC), Hanwha Asset Management, BDC, Real Ventures, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), and McKinsey & Company. Founded in 2016, Element AI develops AI software "that helps people work smarter," according to its marketing blurb. So far, the startup has focused on partnering with enterprises that want to use AI but lack the required expertise, connecting businesses with machine learning experts in-house and elsewhere to address specific problems. Earlier this year, Element AI officially launched its first products for enterprise customers in the form of "decision-making automation tools." Using computer vision, optical character recognition (OCR), and other AI mechanisms, Element AI promises to enable machines to do things like "read" documents or answer workers' questions about internal operations using natural language queries.

While tech giants like Google and Amazon build and invest in a multitude of artificial intelligence applications to grow their businesses, a startup has raised a big round of funding to help those that are not technology businesses by nature also jump into the AI fray. Element AI, the very well-funded, well-connected Canadian startup that has built an AI systems integrator of sorts to help other companies develop and implement artificial intelligence solutions -- an'Accenture' for machine learning, neural network-based solutions, computer vision applications, and so on -- is today announcing a further 200 million Canadian dollars ($151.3 million) in funding, money that it plans to use to commercialise more of its products, as well as to continue working on R&D, specifically working on new AI solutions. "Operationalising AI is currently the industry's toughest challenge, and few companies have been successful at taking proofs-of-concept out of the lab, imbedding them strategically in their operations, and delivering actual business impact," said Element AI CEO Jean-François (JF) Gagné in a statement. "We are proud to be working with our new partners, who understand this challenge well, and to leverage each other's expertise in taking AI solutions to market." The company did not disclose its valuation in the short statement announcing the funding, nor has it ever talked about it publicly, but PitchBook notes that as of its previous funding round of $102 million back in 2017, it had a post-money valuation of $300 million, a figure a source close to the company confirmed to me.

Element AI, a Montreal-based studio that tackles problems using machine learning systems, announced a whopping $102 million in funding today. Data Collective led the round, which is one of the largest series A rounds for an AI company to date. The big check offers a massive war chest to Element, which connects businesses with machine learning experts who work to solve any problems they may have. Thanks to the new funds, Element AI will be able to expand its physical footprint. The company is opening offices in Toronto and Asia, according to Jean-François Gagné, the company's cofounder and CEO.

Facebook fighting extremism with AI -- "The problem, as usual, is determining what is extremist, and what isn't, and it goes further than just jihadists," he said. "Are they just talking about ISIS and Al Qaeda, or are they going to go further to deal with white nationalism and neo-Nazi movements?" AI is big business -- Element AI raises a whopping $102 million to bridge the gap between the haves and have-nots of AI. "Intuitive physics" -- DeepMind claims progress towards AI with a better sense of context and "intuitive physics" via relational reasoning and visual prediction, but obstacles to human-like intelligence remain. Alternative schema -- While deep reinforcement learning (DRL) is all the rage right now, some organizations like Vicarious have taken alternative approaches such as their Schema Networks, which have outperformed some DRL nets albeit with some debate and controversy. Facebook fighting extremism with AI -- "The problem, as usual, is determining what is extremist, and what isn't, and it goes further than just jihadists," he said.

Element AI, an artificial intelligence company that delivers groundbreaking AI solutions, announced today it has raised $102M USD, representing the largest Series A funding round for an artificial intelligence company in history. With this funding, Element AI will accelerate its capabilities and invest in large-scale AI projects internationally, solidifying its position as the largest global AI company in Canada and creating 250 jobs in the high tech sector by January 2018. Element AI solves impossible problems for global organizations that urgently need to use AI in combination with their proprietary and valuable data to leap ahead of their competitors. Serial entrepreneurs Jean-François Gagné and Nicolas Chapados, Real Ventures, and Yoshua Bengio, a co-father of deep learning technology, co-founded Element AI 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). Together with MILA, one of the three leading centers of AI research in the world, Element AI pioneered a unique, non-exploitative model of academic cooperation they have now replicated to many other institutes.