SBI Holdings Invests $15 Mn In AI-Based Automation Company AntWorks

SBI Investment Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of SBI Holdings has invested $15 Mn in AntWorks as part of a Series A funding round.

AntWorks is a brainchild of former Infosys BPO head Asheesh Mehra. It is an artificial intelligence (AI) and intelligent automation products and solutions company. AntWorks was founded in June 2015 by Mehra and Govind Sandhu with a vision to provide technical and business process solutions to clients in the healthcare and financial services verticals.

The funding will provide AntWorks with an impetus for their next level of growth in artificial intelligence and enterprise RPA, fuel R&D, strengthen their marketing and sales engine, and energise their foray into newer markets.

Along with the funding, the companies have also announced a joint venture between SBI and AntWorks to tap the tremendous opportunities in the emerging AI space in South East Asia.

Govind Sandhu, Co-Founder and CFO, AntWorks said, “With this investment, we will work together with SBI Group to bring end-to-end, AI-based Enterprise RPA to the globe in a way not done before. Our goal is to empower enterprises in emerging markets like Philippines, India, China, etc. — by unleashing the limitless potential of Machine Learning and Cognitive Automation.”

Bringing Data Ingestion, RPA, And Artificial Intelligence Under One Head

The company believes that its USP is in bringing together all three pieces of the Automation puzzle under one umbrella — Data Ingestion, RPA, and Artificial Intelligence.

AntWorks creates new possibilities with data through automation, digitisation, and enterprise intelligence. They provide an integrated, intelligent, automation enterprise-level product that is powered by Fractal Science and creates Intelligent Integrated Automation Stacks.

These can ingest and process all forms of data — from structured to inferred data— helping transform an enterprise’s operations and creating new business models for them.

Fuelled by cognitive automation and machine–learning capabilities, AntWorks delivers RPA — that’s powered by AI — using its ANTstein™ platform to enterprises of all sizes.

Its ANTsteinTMplatform will be leveraged to automate administration and augment human judgement, creating new criteria for success: collaboration capabilities, information sharing, experimentation, learning, and decision-making effectiveness.

“AntWorks’ has risen through the ranks of global RPA, Automation and Artificial Intelligence companies with a ferocity that’s unprecedented in the industry. We are excited with the possibilities of ANTstein™and look forward to their growth in the Asian region through our joint venture, as well as globally,” said Yoshitaka Kitao, Representative Director, President, and CEO of SBI Holdings, Inc.

AntWorks is headquartered in Singapore and has delivery centres and offices in Singapore, Australia, India, the Philippines, Qatar, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Traction And Opportunities Ahead

The company claims to provide solutions to more than 450 customers with a presence in four continents. Also, AntWorks’ advanced capabilities in AI, NLP, and NLM allow training of BOTs which are proficient and highly accurate while performing higher-value tasks.

It also claims to have performed at an annual revenue growth in three-digit multiples. In Q4, the company is planning the launch of SQUARE, the new RPA product.

Soon after its launch in 2015, the company acquired US-based Benchmark Systems, healthcare applications services provider at about $5 Mn. With the acquisition, AntWorks was expecting that Benchmark Systems will add about $10-$12 Mn to its top-line in a year, targeting overall revenue in between $15-$17 Mn by October 2016.

In the Indian Artificial Intelligence space, we have players like Infrrd, which is developing advanced algorithms used in intelligent data capture to improve the data processing, especially for financial services companies.

Research company Tractica forecasts that the revenue generated from the direct and indirect application of AI-based software is estimated to grow from $643.7 Mn in 2016 to $36.8 Bn by 2025. This represents a significant growth curve for the nine-year period with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 56.8%, as the report mentions.