Michael Berthold founded Knime together with Bernd Wiswedel, Thomas Gabriel, and Peter Ohl. KNIME
AI is changing the way people collect and interact with data. Startup Knime has raised €27.5 million ($30 million) from venture capital firm Invus to expand its AI offerings. This funding follows a previous investment from Invus in 2017, when the firm funded the startup’s €18.3 million ($20 million) Series A round.
Founded in 2017, Knime is headquartered in Zurich and has additional offices in Berlin and Austin, Texas. The startup sells an enterprise software platform for data analysis, reporting and integration. The Zurich-based company’s main product, the Knime Analytics Platform, is an open source software used by data scientists and analysts to analyze and visualize their companies’ data.
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AI is developing faster than the startup
Knime was developed with the goal of democratizing data analytics through a low-code and open-source approach, but advances in generative AI are driving this approach further, explains Michael Berthold, co-founder and CEO of the startup. While the company has developed extensions to the Analytics Platform, users have also developed their own AI tools that they can share with other users, he says.
“The AI extensions allow workflow creators to extend their analytics workflows with GenAI components,” says Berthold. “This allows them to create custom GenAI bots, add protections to GenAI tools, and extend analytics work with GenAI capabilities.”
Millions flow into AI startups
With the rapid development of generative AI, new possibilities are emerging in the world of data analytics, including faster processing times, higher accuracy, predictive modeling and computer-generated visualizations. Many other startups in the space have recently received funding to build out their AI capabilities. These include giants Databricks, which raised more than €450 million ($500 million) last fall at a valuation of just under €40 billion ($43 billion), and Hugging Face, which raised €215 million ($235 million) a year ago.
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Although Knime is much smaller in comparison, the startup says it now serves more than 400 corporate clients, including Audi, Novartis, Bayer, the FDA and P&G, and its user base is now approaching half a million people.
“With this round of funding, we will continue to invest in our GenAI governance capabilities and integrate new GenAI technologies as they evolve,” said Berthold. We will also expand our general data science and AI capabilities and focus on the broader market in the US, Europe, Middle East and Africa to further accelerate Knime’s growth.”
Check out the 15-page pitch deck that Knime used to raise €27.5 million ($30 million) here. You can also find more exciting presentations on our pitch deck topic page, You can get feedback from experts for your own slides here.
