Remi AI, the AI-powered platform that delivers demand forecasting, inventory management, replenishment, and price optimisation, has successfully completed its first external capital raise.
The round marks an exciting milestone for the company that finished a turbulent 2020 with a 25% client growth month-on-month. The investor, Boab AI, is a newly formed accelerator dedicated to AI-powered technology, spearheaded by Artesian Capital. The new program has secured $1.5 million in funding from the Victorian state government via start-up agency LaunchVic, as well as $8 million in private capital and will be supported by a planned $100 million VC fund for AI companies.
“It's such an exciting time in our product life cycle to be bringing on an external investor. We're now able to accelerate product development in some key areas which should make for an exciting 2021, but now it’s a real pivotal time for us to accelerate and enact some of those plans that have been percolating.” Said Eamonn Barrett, partner at Remi AI.
“Boab is a new program, and we’re thrilled to be part of the inaugural cohort, but Artesian has been around for a long time, and their track record and current portfolio speak for themselves.”
On top of investment, Remi AI is also taking part in the Boab Scale Up program, a 6 month initiative that is tailored to the individual needs of the 5 companies taking part.
“We’ve known from the beginning that our core offering is something different,” says Calum Hamilton, another partner at Remi AI “but it’s been great to have access to a range of people who’ve walked the start-up path before. People who’ve not just built products and scaled them but built out entire companies from scratch. Catriona (Wallace - Boab Executive Chairperson) and Andrew (Lai - Managing Director of Boab) are juggernauts, always offering great advice.”
By taking investment, the team at Remi AI have also received external validation of their business, but that comes with some big challenges.
The plan is to “Get more clients on, scale the business without losing what makes us Remi. Between ourselves and Boab we’ve set some pretty lofty goals that can seem a little daunting, but the team are really excited about the opportunity.”
On the back of COVID-19, Remi AI has found an important role in its clients plans. Whilst some prospective clients saw the global upheaval as a time to reduce spending on services, especially new services, others realised that such unpredictable times was going to test the existing systems that weren’t delivering maximum efficiency even before the pandemic. Delivering results for medium to enterprise clients has been vital for Remi AI’s clients to stay in business and has lead to close collaborations between the parties involved. One person who has seen the impact Remi AI can deliver is Boab managing director, Andrew Lai:
"We've been very impressed with the Remi AI team who are able to produce such outstanding ROI to companies with a supply chain. There's such a big opportunity for optimisation within logistics and supply chain with flow on impacts for everyone in society. Remi AI's technology has widespread application and impact."
More to come.