Peak AI closes $21 million funding round

The Series B is being led by Oxx, with participation from past investors MMC Ventures and Praetura Ventures

One of the biggest challenges for businesses is deciding where, when and how to use technology, when they are not technology companies themselves. Now, a Manchester startup is announcing funding for a platform that it believes can help.

Peak AI, which has built technology that it says can help enterprises, specifically those that work with physical products including retailers, consumer goods companies and manufacturing organizations, make better, AI-based evaluations and decisions, has closed a round of $21 million.

The Series B is being led by Oxx, with participation from past investors MMC Ventures and Praetura Ventures, as well as new backer Arete. It has raised $43 million till date, but it is not disclosing its valuation.

Richard Potter, the CEO who co-founded the company with Atul Sharma and David Leitch, said that the funding will be used to continue expanding the functionality of its platform, adding offices in the U.S. and India, and growing its customer base.

Its list of clients includes the retailer PrettyLittleThing, KFC, PepsiCo, Marshalls and Speedy Hire.

As Potter describes it, Peak identified its opportunity early on. It was founded in 2014, a time non-tech enterprises were just starting to grasp how the concept of AI could apply to their businesses but felt it was out of their reach.

AI service at that time was primarily focused on technology companies such as Google, Amazon and Apple that were building AI products to power their own services, and snapping up talents in the field as it manifested through smaller startups and universities.

Peak’s basic premise was to build AI as a business service. Its platform sits within an organization and ingests any data source that a company might wish to feed into it.

While initial integration needs technical know-how, either at the company itself or via a systems integrator, using Peak on a daily basis can be done by both technical and non-technical workers.

Peak says it can help answer a variety of questions that those people might have, such as the amount of item to be produced, and where to ship it, based on a complex mix of sales data; how to manage stock better; or when to increase or decrease headcount in a warehouse. The platform can also be used to help businesses with marketing and advertising on how to target campaigns to the right audiences.