South African machine-learning startup DataProphet has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Yellowwoods Capital Holdings, to enable the startup to invest in additional resources and machines.
DataProphet said the investment by Yellowwoods reflects the growth of the machine-learning space, and will allow the startup to continue doing “what [they]are good at”.
“While machine learning has been around for some time now, this has mainly been as an academic subject, rather than an industry in itself. Global interest and uptake of this technology is significant with industry giants Facebook, Google and Uber recognising and utilising machine learning solutions,” says Daniel Schwartzkopff, commercial director and co-founder at DataProphet.
According to Schwartzkopff, machine learning startups like DataProphet are hindered in their work unless they have data-owning partners to implement their solutions.
While DataProphet has been working with businesses in Silicon Valley, Schwartzkopff says South African businesses have been slower to include machine learning solutions in their budgets.
“South African businesses haven’t been as quick to jump on board as those in the US, mainly due to a shortage of artificial intelligence skills in the country. Recently, however, a number of large local and international corporates in South Africa have begun to allow for these solutions in their budgets,” he says.
DataProphet builds custom-solutions for clients to help them improve on their processes. Solutions built to date include an agent lead matching algorithm, a priority lead identification algorithm, a time allocation algorithm, and fraud detection.
