South African startup Stone Three, a leading industry 4.0 solution business that combines expert services with the power of machine learning to solve problems that increase operational productivity and keep people safer, healthier and happier, has raised expansion funding from Knife Capital.
The end-to-end solutions for AI-augmented digital productivity, health and workplace safety offered by Stone Three include software offerings that scale at the enterprise level, contain advanced machine learning, video analytics, healthcare technologies and deep domain knowledge.
Self-funded to date by operations and shareholders, the startup has just secured expansion capital from venture capital firm Knife Capital to further enhance its enterprise product offerings and accelerate growth by putting the future of work in practice.
“Actionable insights and sustainable business value from data help fuel the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Stone Three partners with the firms that built the world of today to create the future of work by leveraging the benefits buried in their industrial data,” said Derick Moolman, Stone Three’s chief executive officer (CEO). “My former partners and I were fortunate to work closely with the Knife Capital founders in a previous successful venture and I’m excited to have this funder of choice alongside us in Stone Three’s growth journey.
Moolman previously co-founded CSense Systems, which secured funding from Mark Shuttleworth’s “Here-Be-Dragons” venture capital fund, managed by Knife Capital. CSense was a process analytics startup that developed rapid process troubleshooting and process improvement software solutions for industrial applications, which was acquired by the US-based GE Intelligent Platforms in 2011.
“It is a tough challenge to successfully blend data analytics with invaluable human experience and institutional knowledge to achieve measurable results in increasing operational productivity. Through our previous successful venture capital exit with Derick and CSense we built a trust relationship and knowing the technology development capability of the Stone Three team, we are excited to be an investor here. We look forward to adding value in their continued growth journey,” said Keet van Zyl, partner and co-founder at Knife Capital.
