AI can help businesses tackle the most complex problems. London startup InstaDeep empowers companies to build AI-powered decision-making systems for the enterprise in Energy, Financial Services, Mobility, and Logistics. Clients using the software now receive unprecedented insight into operations and workflow and are able to easily deploy solutions tailored to their business faster than ever before.
London TechWatch spoke with cofounder and CEO Karim Beguir about his vision for InstaDeep, the company’s origin, and recent round of funding.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We’ve raised a $7M Series A. The round was led by pan-African private equity firm AfricInvest, with participation from Endeavor Catalyst, a New York-based co-investment fund under Endeavor. There were also additional individual investors.
Tell us about the product or service InstaDeep offers.
InstaDeep offers decision-making AI products and end-to-end solutions to Enterprise clients. Using advanced machine learning, we’ve delivered value to top-notch companies in Energy, Financial Services, Mobility, and Logistics. Our 78-people strong team includes experienced AI researchers, ML engineers, hardware and visualization experts. By combining their expertise, we can tackle the most challenging optimisation and automation challenges and provide real value and ROI for our customers.
What inspired you to start InstaDeep?
I grew up in a small town at the limits of the Sahara. Like so many cities in Africa, there were few opportunities but books, and knowledge became everything for me. As a teenager, I cherished the wartime stories of Alan Turing, Bletchley Park and the early days of AI. How a few inspired mathematicians and engineers made such a huge difference in history convinced me to follow my heart and focus on this field. Today AI is changing the world and I’ve cofounded InstaDeep to help companies seize this opportunity and make sure the benefits are widely shared.
How is InstaDeep different?
InstaDeep is an unusual startup because we actually innovate in-house, with top recognition from the AI research community. But contrary to say a research centre, we go ahead deploy these innovations in practice with our customers to improve their business and provide them with a competitive edge. We also partner with leading tech firms such as Nvidia, Intel, and Google to build the very best products combining advanced AI hardware and software.
What market are you targeting and how big is it?
Our focus is on the Enterprise AI market which is expected to reach $6.1B by 2022.
What’s your business model?
At InstaDeep we believe in a collaborative approach when working with customers to fully understand the pain points and challenges they are facing in their environment. To ensure this, we work closely with the client’s in-house team and in many instances function as a team extension. We often start with a Proof of Concept or Pilot project, before scaling the product or solution into a fully deployable business solution. We have also built a decision-making platform for specific, important use cases such as mobility and logistics.
How could your platform be used for cities that are discouraging automobiles and encouraging bike lanes?
Municipalities need to make complex decisions such as where to position bike lanes or how many buses should be deployed and with which passenger capacity. Our mobility platform leverages Machine Learning to make these complex decisions that take into account all variables and realistically assess their impact. This makes it easier for cities to reduce the number of cars on the roads in favour of better alternatives such as bikes and shared transportation.
What was the funding process like?
It takes more time than I thought! But it’s also a healthy conversation which helps refine one’s strategy. We’re lucky to have AfricInvest and Endeavor, two experienced institutions that share our long-term vision and are helping us accelerate our development.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
The biggest challenge for me was to balance the need to speak with investors with my active role leading our AI Research & Development team. Fortunately, we’ve now hired an experienced CFO, Isabelle Levard, which will make things easier in the future.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
I believe it’s the rare combination of advanced AI expertise with our ability to work with enterprise customers and deliver. InstaDeep started as a bootstrap, so from day one listening to our clients and exceeding their expectations was a must.
I believe it’s the rare combination of advanced AI expertise with our ability to work with enterprise customers and deliver. InstaDeep started as a bootstrap, so from day one listening to our clients and exceeding their expectations was a must.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Our current goal is to deploy our decision-making platform with multiple customers and deliver new efficiencies that only recently were considered impossible.
What advice can you offer companies in London that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Fundraising should never be an objective on its own. By being a bootstrap, you learn many valuable lessons that allow you, when the time is right, to accelerate your development with funding. If you fund your company too early and too much, you are likely to make expensive mistakes.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
I’m excited by the quality of the enterprise clients we are engaging with. Delivering tangible value for them using our latest product innovations is the top priority of the company.
What is your favourite London pub to grab a pint with the team?
We’re based at WeWork Paddington so we are blessed with free beers on tap and a great sunny roof terrace!
