Singapore-based AI Company Taiger Closes S$8 million Series A Round Led by Tembusu and SGInnovate

Thursday, 24 August 2017, 10:30 HKT/SGT

Source: Taiger Singapore Pte Ltd / Tembusu Partners Pte Ltd

SINGAPORE, Aug 24, 2017 - (ACN Newswire) - Taiger, a Singapore-based company specialising in applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions, has successfully closed its Series A round. The S$8 million funding was led by Tembusu ICT Fund I and included SGInnovate, in a boon to Singapore's efforts to become a leader in AI.

AI has taken the world by storm - organizations, from the big players in technology to governments, are aggressively pumping up R&D efforts and investments in this area. Yet most of the companies in the increasingly crowded AI space come from a pure Machine Learning-based approach. Taiger takes a "humanistic" approach to AI, and is now set to further solidify its lead in this field.

The funding comes from Tembusu ICT Fund I, the only software-focused venture capital fund in Singapore and one of the six funds selected by the National Research Foundation of Singapore (NRF) as part of the Early Stage Venture Fund II scheme. SGInnovate, a government-owned entity which operates under the NRF, has also participated in this round.

Taiger specialises in information access and knowledge extraction, with technology which applies a hybrid between the symbolic and probabilistic disciplines of AI. Taiger's AI solutions are taught to read and understand information as a human worker does, transforming completely unstructured information to valuable knowledge for businesses and their customers.

"We're talking about drastic reduction in cost, huge productivity gains, and of course, allowing workers to focus on higher-value work," said Dr. Sinuhe Arroyo, CEO and founder of Taiger.

Taiger's iMatch solution is capable of automatically extracting, validating and interpreting information from documents, replicating the intelligence of a human worker. A large European bank has automated their corporate client on-boarding process with iMatch, translating into an 85% drop in cost and a reduced processing time from weeks to a matter of minutes.

Dr. Sinuhe Arroyo added: "We're definitely excited to have Tembusu Partners and SGInnovate on board. Taiger's vision is very much aligned with Singapore's Smart Nation Initiative. We're honored to be recently awarded the accreditation status by the Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA) and partnering them to contribute to Singapore's digital transformation. With funding secured, we can now focus on pumping up our sales and R&D efforts here in Singapore and expanding our presence worldwide."

Mr. Brijesh Pande, Managing Partner of Tembusu ICT Fund I, said: "Taiger integrates the latest technologies in AI and semantic computing, enabling them to create innovative, contextually relevant and highly scalable deep learning solutions in areas such as information extraction, virtual assistants and enterprise search. We are proud to partner with Taiger to support the next phase of their exciting journey."

Taiger is an accredited company under the IMDA's Accreditation @ IMDA Programme.

MCM Partners acted as financial advisor and Morgan Lewis Stamford was the legal counsel in the transaction.

Media collaterals can be accessed via this link: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AqDVkJSoBjXIgcdkZgMdaTAAWI-N0A

About Taiger Singapore Pte Ltd

Taiger is an international software vendor headquartered in Singapore that is leading the next generation of Artificial Intelligence solutions in the fields of information access and retrieval for the finance, insurance and government sectors. Currently present in 5 countries across 3 continents, Taiger helps firms automate cognitive complex tasks until now reserved to humans.

Based on the application of patent protected technology around Computational Semantics, Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning, Taiger solutions are able to contextualize, understand and process human language. This results in large cost reductions and speed gains in the processing of powers of attorney, financial statements, ISDAs, life policies, KYC, as well as more complex tasks such on-boarding, or customer support, to name a few.

Taiger is an IMDA-accredited company, named Gartner Cool Vendor 2017, member of the W3C consortium, and recipient of the ISO 9001 quality standard. In 2017 Taiger won the Citi HK FinTech Challenge Grand Award. For more information, please visit: www.taiger.com

About Tembusu ICT Fund I

Tembusu ICT Fund I is a venture capital fund established in 2015 which focuses on promising early-stage software companies. It is the only software-focused fund in Singapore and one of six funds selected by the National Research Foundation (NRF) as part of the Early Stage Venture Fund (ESVF) II scheme, which promotes co-investment in local startups alongside capital invested by NRF. The General Partners of Tembusu ICT Fund I are Tembusu Partners and Pepri Ventures (the investment vehicle of Mr. Brijesh Pande, Managing Partner of Tembusu ICT Fund I). Tembusu ICT Fund I portfolio companies include Deskera, Vi Dimensions, Latize, Sixscape and Taiger. For more information, please visit: www.tembusupartners.com/en/index.php/funds/tembusu-ict-fund-i

About Tembusu Partners Pte Ltd

Tembusu Partners is a private equity investment firm that invests in promising early and growth-stage companies with a view to generate optimal returns for both investee companies and investors. Besides supporting its investee companies through mezzanine and equity financing, it also lends operational expertise to help them grow. Headquartered in Singapore, its primary geographical markets are within Emerging Asia - comprising China, India and Southeast Asia. For more information, please visit: www.tembusupartners.com

Taiger Media Contact
Han Jiamin
E: jiamin.han@taiger.com
T: +65 9235 4280

Tembusu Partners Media Contact
WeR1 Consultants Pte Ltd
Ian Lau
E: ianlau@wer1.net
T: +65 6737 4844

Topic: Press release summary
Source: Taiger Singapore Pte Ltd / Tembusu Partners Pte Ltd
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