In recent years the Cape Town metropolitan area has emerged as a major player in Africa’s fast growing tech industry. We have many Data Science and AI professionals in the country and some of our home-grown companies are stepping into the wider international market with aplomb. DataProphet has raised R100 million in funding to facilitate its international expansion.
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Based in Cape Town, DataProphet is a provider of artificial intelligence solutions of various types, but has in recent years been focusing on enabling manufacturers to implement autonomous manufacturing.
According to co-founder and CEO Frans Cronje “South Africa will remain our engineering and operational hub as we have access to great talent. DataProphet, however, is an international business, with hubs located around the world.”
The latest round of investment totalled $6 million, or R102 million at the time of writing, and was led by Knife Capital with the Industrial Development Corporation and the Norican Group.
“Applying AI to the foundry industry will reduce energy consumption, increase yield and reduce waste,” says Norican Group CEO Anders Wilhjelm. “What started as a commercial cooperation with DataProphet, developed into a partnership, and now we will also become a shareholder. We know foundries and how they work, DataProphet really knows AI, so we are truly excited about what DataProphet and we can achieve together.”
“As manufacturers become more familiar with the value AI can create for them, they are realising that they must be careful to ensure they are not simply using AI for analytics, substituting scarce process engineers with even scarcer data scientists,” said Cronje.
“Rather, to realise the full value of AI, they need to consider how AI can play into their smart factory plans. These technologies are key to achieving the goals of Industry 4.0 and allowing manufacturing plants to be far more responsive to the market demands without incurring additional costs.“
“Through the application of our technology, each and every one of our clients has reduced non-quality products by more than 50%,” Cronje closed.
