Spare5 is Now Mighty AI, Relaunches with $14M in New Funding and New Agreements with Intel and Accenture

Intel Capital led the round with participation from new investors GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Accenture Ventures and additional investment from Foundry Group, Madrona Venture Group and New Enterprise Associates (NEA).

Relaunching as Mighty AI reflects the company's core business of delivering the human insights artificial intelligence (AI) engines need to see, hear, talk and "think" like people. Its Training Data as a Service™ (TDaaS™) platform helps businesses obtain the datasets they need to train and scale their computer vision and natural language models.

"In the future, we will count on AI to make every aspect of our lives better," said Mighty AI Founder and CEO Matt Bencke. "AI will manage our information, schedules and energy use. It will make our factories, roads and homes safer and more efficient. It will provide us each with a personal shopper and investment advisor. But, for AI models to do all this and more, they need to understand what and how we think. Mighty AI is the critical link between computer and human cognition, putting the right humans in the right learning loops."

Mighty AI will use the new funding to extend both its TDaaS platform and community of Fives—a network of tens of thousands of individuals who conduct microtasks in their spare time, such as identifying and labeling objects in images or doing sentiment analysis of text. With the funding, Mighty AI will also grow its team by adding new data scientists, engineers and product, sales and marketing professionals.

"As our CEO, Brian Krzanich, has said, AI is not only the next big wave in computing; it's the next major turning point in human history," said Doug Fisher, Intel Corporation Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Software and Services Group. "Intel is investing in AI, with the goal of driving breakthrough performance while making AI solutions more accessible and easier to deploy for all. We see a significant opportunity across applications such as automated driving, robotics, healthcare and the Internet of Things. To produce high quality data for training models to deploy, it is essential to obtain clean, accurate human annotations at scale. With today's announcement, Intel is pleased to team with Mighty AI to power the world's AI engines, operating on Intel® architecture and guided by Mighty AI's training data platform."

"As a leader in applying AI to both our own business and our clients' businesses, we know that AI will drive the next wave of business and societal transformation," said Paul Daugherty, Accenture's Chief Technology & Innovation Officer. "Data is the fuel required to power AI solutions, but many clients lack the right tools and solutions to achieve the business value they are looking for from their AI initiatives. By teaming with Mighty AI, we see a great opportunity to break this bottleneck, accelerate the integration of training data, and drive better business outcomes more rapidly."

Mighty AI's agreements with Intel and Accenture gives customers better access to tools and services across the AI stack, also known as the four components of any AI model:

1. The infrastructure, such as the chips Intel builds;
2. The large-scale mathematical algorithms that process tremendous amounts of calculations in parallel to "think;"
3. The training data that turns these blank slates into simulations of human knowledge; and
4. The application of the resulting AI models in interfaces that make it easy for people to use.

With the new agreement, customers of Accenture and Mighty AI will get a more streamlined experience as they execute across the full AI stack to apply their models. The formation of the relationship with Mighty AI was led by Accenture Ventures, which focuses on teaming with and investing in companies that create innovative enterprise technologies.

"We couldn't be more excited to team with Intel and Accenture, both of which are second to none in their respective industries," said Bencke. "Our mission at Mighty AI is to tap the world's potential brainpower so that our customers' AI engines have heroic impact. Words matter, and today we declare that we operate the world's best platform to make our customers' AI models mighty, together with our industry-leading partners."

About Mighty AI
Founded in 2014, Mighty AI delivers the human insights artificial intelligence (AI) engines need to see, hear, talk and "think" like humans. Our Training Data as a Service™ platform helps companies get the accurate, high-quality datasets they need to train and scale their computer vision and natural language models. Visit www.mty.ai to learn more, and follow us at @mighty_ai.

About Intel Capital
Intel Capital, Intel's strategic investment organization, backs innovative startups targeting computing and smart devices, cloud, datacenter, security, the Internet of Things, wearable and robotic technologies and semiconductor manufacturing. Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested US$11.8 billion in 1,478 companies worldwide, and 617 portfolio companies have gone public or been acquired. Through its business development programs, Intel Capital curates thousands of introductions each year between its portfolio executives and Intel's customers and partners in the Global 2000. For more information on what makes Intel Capital one of the world's most powerful venture capital firms, visit www.intelcapital.com or follow @Intelcapital.

SOURCE Mighty AI

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