AI & Machine Learning Acquisitions in 2019

CloudFactory, a provider of managed workforce solutions for AI, raised $65 million in growth equity financing led by FTV Capital with participation from Weatherford Capital. The capital will be used to scale operations, invest in workforce training and development, expand global market awareness, and advance CloudFactory's technology capabilities.

Compass has acquired Detectica, a New York City–based artificial intelligence and machine learning company. Detectica’s founders and team join Compass’s AI group to deepen the company’s AI/ML capabilities and accelerate features such as personalized recommendations and similar-home matching across the Compass real estate platform.

Directly has acquired AI start-up Kylie.ai, bringing the Kylie.ai team and proprietary conversational AI technology in-house to expand Directly's intelligent automation platform. The acquisition adds transactional capabilities (refunds, returns, cancellations, order tracking) to Directly's customer support automation offerings, with Kylie.ai co-founders joining Directly in business development and data science roles.

Mateon Therapeutics, Inc. (OTCQB:MATN) has completed its acquisition of PointR Data Inc., a revenue-generating AI and high-performance cluster computing company that provides AI Vision and blockchain solutions for pharmaceutical manufacturing and clinical trial monitoring. The deal brings PointR's leadership (including Saran Saund and Burcak Beser) into Mateon's management team and is intended to expand Mateon's capabilities by integrating AI and blockchain into its drug development, manufacturing and real-world evidence efforts.

Micron Technology acquired FWDNXT, a Purdue-affiliated AI hardware and software startup, to integrate its inference engine into Micron’s Deep Learning Accelerator (DLA) and create a comprehensive AI development platform. The acquisition brings together FWDNXT’s edge AI hardware/software capabilities with Micron’s memory expertise to accelerate development of memory-optimized AI workloads for IoT, edge computing, healthcare imaging and scientific research.

Relative Insight, a UK-based language understanding / AI-driven customer intelligence platform, raised $5 million in a Series A led by Maven Capital Partners with support from the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund. The funding will support product development and the opening of Relative Insight's first U.S. office as the company expands its presence in the North American market.

Sonasoft Corporation (SSFT) has completed the acquisition of OPtimAIze, Inc., an AI software company that builds an AI platform to identify and predict compatibility risks in software product updates. Sonasoft plans to integrate OPtimAIze’s platform into its NuGene AI platform to expand its AI capabilities for software product development teams.

Alteryx acquired Feature Labs, an MIT-born data science software company that automates feature engineering for machine learning, to strengthen Alteryx's machine learning and AI capabilities and add an engineering hub in Boston. The acquisition integrates Feature Labs' automated feature-engineering technology and open-source libraries into the Alteryx Platform to accelerate time-to-insight for enterprise data workers.

Boathouse Capital has completed a growth investment in Finch, a Salt Lake City–based paid digital media automation platform that leverages AI and machine learning to optimize paid search, display and shopping advertising. The capital will be used to drive sales and marketing and support general growth; Boathouse partner Bill Dyer will join Finch’s board to help scale the business.

RadNet, Inc. acquired the remaining 75% interest in Nulogix, Inc., an early-stage company developing artificial intelligence solutions for radiology, and created a new A.I. division to develop, acquire and invest in image-interpretation and radiology business-process technologies. The acquisition gives RadNet full ownership of Nulogix and positions the company to integrate AI capabilities into its national network of outpatient diagnostic imaging centers.

Elsevier has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Parity Computing Inc., a San Diego-based AI company that provides high-accuracy entity resolution and disambiguation for scientific, technical and medical (STM) content. The acquisition will integrate Parity's machine learning, NLP and semantic technologies into Elsevier's research products (including Scopus) to deepen analytics and improve researcher discovery and decision-making.

Coveo acquired Tooso, an AI-based digital commerce engine, to integrate Tooso’s natural-language and intent-understanding capabilities into Coveo’s AI platform and strengthen its digital commerce offering. The acquisition brings Tooso’s team and technology into Coveo to improve ecommerce shopper intent understanding and boost conversion performance.

DataRobot has acquired ParallelM, a Santa Clara–based pioneer in MLOps, to expand its model deployment, monitoring, and governance capabilities. The acquisition integrates ParallelM’s MCenter platform and team (including CEO Sivan Metzger joining DataRobot leadership) to strengthen DataRobot’s end-to-end enterprise AI and governance offering across cloud and on-premise environments.

SymphonyAI Group acquired Azima Global, a provider of cloud-based machine condition monitoring, diagnostic and analytics solutions for process and manufacturing industries, and has renamed the business Symphony AzimaAI. The deal integrates Azima's equipment diagnostics and domain expertise with SymphonyAI's eurekaAI platform to deliver AI-driven predictive maintenance and asset reliability solutions and support product, equipment-coverage and geographic expansion.

MINDBODY acquired Bowtie.ai, a Brooklyn-based AI-driven virtual receptionist, to add conversational AI and automated booking capabilities to its wellness platform. The Bowtie team will be retained as MINDBODY integrates Bowtie's messaging and appointment automation to accelerate an intelligent, unified customer communication experience for small and medium-sized wellness businesses.

Evolv Technology Solutions (Evolv AI) acquired Sentient Ascend—an AI-powered autonomous experience optimization (A/B testing and conversion optimization) platform—following a spin-out from Sentient Technologies Holdings Ltd. Concurrently Evolv closed a $10 million Series A led by Horizons Ventures to scale the Ascend business, expand engineering and data science teams, and grow sales and customer success capacity.

Search Discovery, an Atlanta-based data transformation firm, has acquired Peachtree AI to add machine learning and cognitive computing services to its offerings. Peachtree AI founder Joseph Sutherland joins Search Discovery to lead AI and data science solution development, accelerating the buyer’s AI capability expansion.

Appen Limited has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Figure Eight (formerly CrowdFlower) for USD $175 million up-front and up to $125 million contingent on 2019 performance. The deal combines Appen's global crowd and language expertise with Figure Eight's machine-learning-assisted annotation platform to create an end-to-end training-data offering for AI and machine learning customers.

Sensory Inc. acquired Vocalize.ai, a software tools and services provider that benchmarks and evaluates speech recognition and natural language interfaces. Vocalize.ai will operate as an independent division under Sensory to provide independent, real-world testing and benchmarking capabilities to Sensory and the broader voice-enabled industry.

Jvion, an Atlanta-based healthcare AI company, raised a significant growth equity round led by JMI Equity with participation from Health Enterprise Partners and Health Velocity Capital, alongside strategic investments from Intermountain Healthcare and Trinity Health. The financing will accelerate Jvion’s expansion across provider, payor and pharmaceutical markets and further develop its prescriptive AI platform for improving clinical outcomes.

Applied Insight, an Acacia Group-backed federal technology services provider, has acquired Applied Technology Group (ATG) and Stratus Solutions to bolster its cloud, analytics and artificial intelligence capabilities for intelligence, defense and federal civilian customers. The add-ons (ATG ~80 employees; Stratus ~100 employees) expand AI's mission-focused capabilities in machine learning, high-scale cloud infrastructure, DevOps and cybersecurity.

Envestnet | Yodlee acquired conversational AI startup Abe AI to integrate Abe's conversational banking and NLP capabilities into Yodlee's financial wellness and retail banking offerings, with plans to extend into Envestnet's wealth management products. The acquisition expands Yodlee's product capabilities by adding natural-language, voice and chat interfaces across major conversational ecosystems.

Qlik has acquired the CrunchBot AI analytics bot and the team from Crunch Data to expand conversational analytics and augmented intelligence within Qlik Sense and collaboration platforms. The purchase brings CrunchBot's natural-language query and NLG capabilities plus Crunch Data's AI/solution development specialists into Qlik's product and customer-success organization to drive analytics adoption and data literacy.

Lionbridge has acquired Tokyo-based Gengo and its AI training-data platform Gengo.ai, expanding Lionbridge's machine-learning data, crowdsourcing and localization capabilities. The deal strengthens Lionbridge's presence in Asia and augments its offerings for AI, gaming, life sciences and e-commerce customers; financial terms were not disclosed.

Funds advised by Apax Partners have agreed to invest USD 200 million for a significant minority stake in Fractal Analytics, comprised of a secondary purchase from existing shareholders and a primary investment into the business. The capital will be used to accelerate Fractal's growth — both organically and via M&A — and to further invest in AI products and research; the deal was expected to close in February 2019.

Standard Cognition acquired Explorer.ai, a Carnegie Mellon–founded robotic mapping and computer vision startup, bringing the team's indoor-mapping technology and seven engineers into Standard to accelerate its autonomous checkout rollout. The acquisition adds mapping capabilities used for autonomous vehicles and in-store mapping, enabling faster store mapping and expansion into larger retail formats.

Motorola Solutions acquired VaaS International Holdings, a provider of AI-driven image capture and license-plate-reading analytics, for $445 million in a combination of cash and equity. The deal brings VaaS's vehicle-location data, including the Vigilant Solutions and Digital Recognition Network businesses, into Motorola's public-safety software and command-center portfolio to enhance investigatory and response capabilities.

QuickLogic Corporation has acquired SensiML Corporation, a SaaS edge/endpoint AI software provider; terms were not disclosed and the deal was funded in QuickLogic common stock. SensiML will operate as a division of QuickLogic and continue developing its platform-independent Analytics Toolkit to support a broad set of SoCs, adding SaaS revenue and edge-AI capabilities to QuickLogic's semiconductor and eFPGA offerings.