Vishal Sikka's Vianai raises $140 mn from SoftBank Vision Fund, others

Vishal Sikka founded Vianai Systems, a human-centered AI platform and products company, has raised $140 million in a Series B financing from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and others. The company had raised $50 million earlier in a seed round.

Other investors in the company include Jim Davidson (co-Founder of Silver Lake), Henry Kravis and George Roberts (co-founders of KKR), and Jerry Yang (founding partner of AME and co-founder of Yahoo! Inc.). Joining Vianai’s previously announced advisory board is Fei-Fei Li, co-director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI.

The  two year-old startup will use the funding to accelerate the delivery of its human-centered AI platform and products to enterprises worldwide. 

According to Sikka, AI can play a transformative role in Indian business and Indian society. “While we see some early examples already, the true benefits will come from a human-centered approach, where AI amplifies human judgement.  Beyond this, my dream is to see India’s youth as a massive creative force that can use tools, like Vianai's platform, to build human-centered AI systems for India and for the world,” said Sikka, who served as Infosys CEO for three years before resigning in 2017 over a tussle between the company board and founder-shareholders.

Vianai is working towards pioneering a human-centered AI approach that amplifies human judgment thus empowering domain experts with AI tools to deliver powerful business value. Vianai has already delivered successful business outcomes to numerous world-leading enterprises, ciamed the company.

“Vianai’s human-centered approach to AI has been critical to the design of an advanced early warning system for our underwriters. The system, which extracts actionable insights from non-traditional data sources, has the potential to drive significant business value for us, and our customers,” said Torsten Jeworrek, Member of the Group Executive Board and Global Head of Reinsurance at Munich Re. “With Vianai as an innovation partner, Munich Re is on a path towards breakthrough digital transformation of our core business, and that of the industry as a whole.”

“With the AI revolution underway, we believe Vianai’s human-centered AI platform and products provide global enterprises with operational and customer intelligence to make better business decisions,” said Deep Nishar, Senior Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers.