Ottawa-based Raven.ai, which mines manufacturers’ data to make their operations more efficient, has secured US$12 million to complete its series-A funding round.
The round was led by Momenta Ventures and Chartline Capital Partners with participation from Celtic House Venture Partners and Export Development Canada, as well as from prominent angel investors including Shopify’s Tobi Lütke and former Cognos CEO Rob Ashe.
Raven says its solutions are well positioned in the market as manufacturers struggle with rising costs, a scarcity of skilled labour and supply chain disruptions.
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“With advancements in AI from companies like OpenAI, DeepMind and others, we are moving into an age of near-limitless computing and analytical power,” Raven co-founder and chief executive Martin Cloake said in a news release. “But, ROI delivered from technology investments will increasingly depend on the quality of data – not the just quality of analysis.
“In manufacturing, obtaining the high-quality data needed to drive real improvements depends on the ability to interpret and contextualize data from both people and machines. This is the value that Raven provides.”
Michael Dolbec, managing director at Momenta, said manufacturing is “changing rapidly” with an influx of high-tech solutions.
“But despite investments, manufacturers still struggle to improve operational efficiencies and generate returns because they don’t have sufficient knowledge of their problems to deploy advanced technology solutions,” he said in a statement. “Raven’s automated contextualization software solves this problem.”
As manufacturers adapt, spending on next-generation manufacturing technologies is expected to increase from US$263 billion in 2021 to US$1.1 trillion by 2028, according to MIT Sloan.
“To address labour costs and mitigate supply chain issues, the majority of manufacturers have begun reshoring their productions. This will bring hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs back to Canada and the U.S. to help boost our economies,” Phil Stern, managing director at Chartline Capital Partners, said. “We believe Raven’s solution will play a key role in engaging these frontline teams to provide the critical context and shop-floor insights needed for businesses to drive lean improvements and gains.”
This latest financing round brings Raven’s total funding to US$16.5 million since the company was founded in 2013 by Cloake and Braden Stenning.
