14th March 2022
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The Sheffield-based company behind a platform for the creation of synthetic training data for AI vision systems has raised $3.7m (£2.8m) through a new investment round.
Mindtech Global has completed a strategic investment round led by Appen, a specialist in data for the AI lifecycle.
The latest investment round, including participation from Appen and existing Mindtech investors, follows a $3.25m funding round in July 2021 and will be used to support the company’s rapid growth.
The July 2021 investment round for Mindtech Global was led by NPIF – Mercia Equity Finance, which is managed by Mercia and is part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF), with Deeptech Labs and In-Q-Tel participating.
In addition to the new investment, Appen and Mindtech have formed a commercial partnership to provide a range of real and synthetic images and associated data and metadata annotation services to the market.
Mindtech’s Chameleon platform is expected to be complementary to Appen’s existing data and annotation services.
Chameleon’s ‘no-code’ platform is designed for the creation and automated annotation of synthetic data to train human-to-human and human-to-world AI applications
It is designed to help computers understand and predict human interactions in applications ranging across retail, smart home, healthcare and smart city.
Mark Brayan, chief executive at Appen, said: “Synthetic data is an invaluable resource in the training of AI models and when combined with real-world data can enable outstanding results. We’re excited to partner with Mindtech as their automated end-to-end end synthetic data platform produces the right synthetic data for our customers, faster than competing solutions.”
Steve Harris, chief executive at Mindtech, said: “We’re excited about this strategic partnership with Appen – it’s going to enable more customers to rapidly train their AI systems on scalable synthetic data while complementing Appen’s existing products in real-world data collection, management and annotation.
“By working in partnership, we’ll further accelerate the development of AI systems that better understand how humans interact with each other and the world around them.”
Sean Hutchinson, senior investment manager at British Business Bank, added: “The progress that Mindtech has made since it was established in 2019 has been impressive. The funding from NPIF – Mercia Equity Finance in July 2021 has enabled the company to create five new roles, with plans to double its workforce in the next 12 months now in place.
“This latest round of investment is a testament to the exceptional talent that we have in Sheffield and the North, and we are excited to continue providing businesses, such as Mindtech, the opportunities to realise their growth goals and expand their global presence.”
The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund project is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and the European Investment Bank.
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