US-based data analytics platform Crowdflower has raised $10m in a funding round co-led by Microsoft Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of software company Microsoft.
The round was co-led by Canvas Ventures and Trinity Ventures.
Microsoft only announced last week that it was going to make direct investments in startups but has already backed another company, customer engagement platform Helpshift, which closed a $23m series B round yesterday.
Crowdflower operates a big data platform that combines machine learning with human-labelled training data. The company’s offering includes Crowdflower AI, which is able to understand instructions in conversational English and can automate a range of business processes such as classifying customer support tickets.
The funding will go towards accelerating adoption of Crowdflower AI.
In 2014, Crowdflower obtained $12.5m in a series C round led by Canvas. Bessemer Venture Partners and Trinity Ventures also participated in that round, having previously supported a $7m series B round in 2011 led by Harmony Partners.
Trinity and Bessemer also co-led a $5m series A round in 2010, alongside unnamed existing investors from the company’s $1.2m angel round in 2009.
Nagraj Kashyap, corporate vice president, Microsoft Ventures, said: “At Microsoft, we are looking to create experiences for people and businesses where technology intelligently supports what they are doing.
“CrowdFlower’s approach – combining human and machine intelligence to solve all types of unstructured data problems – aligns with that effort. We look forward to supporting them in their next phase of growth in the broader machine learning and AI market.”