US-based machine intelligence software producer CognitiveScale closed a $21.8m financing round yesterday co-led by Intel Capital, the corporate venturing arm of chipmaker Intel, and venture capital firm Norwest Venture Partners (NVP).
CognitiveScale is the sixth investment from the Intel Capital Diversity Fund, which last week appointed Christine Herron and Trina Van Pelt co-heads.
Cognitive is led by Manoj Saxena, its executive chairman, who was the first general manager of the IBM Watson division; CEO Akshay Sabhikhi, who was previously the global leader for IBM’s Smarter Care; and Matt Sanchez, who led Watson Labs before becoming CognitiveScale’s founder and chief technology officer.
Founded in 2013, CognitiveScale emerged from stealth in late 2014 and provides cloud software that uses artificial intelligence to help businesses improve decision making and customer engagement.
The company will spend the capital on expanding its international sales and delivery teams and the further development of its product range. It has not disclosed details of any past funding.
Vibhor Rastogi, a director at Intel Capital focusing on enterprise software, will join CognitiveScale board of directors in conjunction with the funding, as will Promod Haque, a senior managing partner at NVP.
Haque said: “CognitiveScale is reimagining enterprise engagement with machine intelligence and its tailored solutions are serving as the linchpin for engagement and productivity.
“Not only is CognitiveScale’s technology helping solve core problems for the enterprise, but its executive team is top notch, and we have complete confidence that they will continue to innovate and move the AI industry forward.”