Mindtech Global, a leader in developing synthetic data to train AI vision systems, has secured £4.4 million in funding.
The round was led by Edge and included Mercia Ventures, which was investing from its own funds and the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund.
The latest funding round will enable the Sheffield-based company to further develop its technology, accelerate its presence in key markets including Japan, the US and Europe and continue its partnerships with industry leaders.
Mindtech solves a key challenge for AI developers – how to source sufficient images and datasets to train computer vision systems to identify humans or objects in different settings and recognise small but significant differences. Its Chameleon platform uses games technology to create a virtual world and generate a diverse range of realistic images – for example with different backgrounds and objects, people with different ethnicities and at varying times of day or night.
Chameleon reduces costs and development time, while ensuring companies have legal ownership of data and comply with privacy laws. The use of diverse images also avoids creating bias within AI systems. Mindtech’s latest platform, Dolphin, analyses a company’s current training database and identifies issues such as bias, lack of diversity and sparsity of training data.
Mindtech originated from an idea from a group of industry veterans including Sir Hossein Yassaie, former CEO of chip manufacturer Imagination Technologies. The company now has a team of around 25 people and its technology is used in sectors including retail, healthcare, transportation and robotics.
“This investment marks a pivotal moment for our company. With this support, we’re able to advance our technology and meet the growing demand for robust AI vision solutions across sectors,” said CEO Steve Harris.
Fiona Dent, general partner at Edge, said: “We are delighted to back Mindtech’s vision. Their ethical, GDPR-compliant, synthetic data platform solves the global data scarcity issue highlighted by Gartner, enabling the promise of AI vision to be realised 10x faster than before.”
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