Element AI Raises $102 Million to Empower Global Companies with Artificial Intelligence

Element AI has raised a massive Series A round of funding.

The $102 million US in capital hails from Data Collective, as well as from Fidelity Investments Canada, Hanwha Investment, Intel Capital, Microsoft Ventures, National Bank of Canada, NVIDIA, Real Ventures, and several sovereign wealth funds.

The Montreal company says it will use the funding to accelerate its capabilities and plans to solidify its position as “the largest global artificial intelligence company in Canada.” Element AI intends to create 250 jobs in Canadian tech by January.

Element AI was cofounded last year by serial entrepreneurs Jean-Francois Gagné and Nicolas Chapados, and Yoshua Bengio, a co-father of deep learning technology.

“Artificial Intelligence is a ‘must have’ capability for global companies,” said CEO Gagné. “Without it, they are competitively impaired if not at grave risk of being obsoleted in place. This historic round will help Element AI deliver profoundly powerful AI platforms for all, not just the few.”

Element AI solves impossible problems for global organizations that urgently need to use AI in combination with their proprietary and valuable data to leap ahead of their competitors. Together with MILA, one of the three leading centers of AI research in the world, Element AI pioneered a unique, non-exploitative model of academic cooperation they have now replicated to many other institutes.

“The most serious problems facing global industry and government today involve too much complex and rapidly changing data for the cognitive capacity of even large numbers of human experts working together,” said DCVC Managing Partner Matt Ocko.

“Element AI is doing amazing work enabling AI for a wide variety of industries,” said Jeff Herbst, Vice President of Business Development at NVIDIA.