South Africa’s DataProphet Secures $10 Million To Scale Its AI-as-a-service Solution

DataProphet, a startup offering the manufacturing sector AI-as-a-service software to help automate manufacturing processes and tackle inefficiencies in the manufacturing process, has completed its Series A funding round at $10 million. The Series A funding round was led by Knife Capital and saw the participation of South Africa’s IDC and Norican, one of the world’s largest metal surface preparation and finishing equipment providers.

The company was founded by Frans Cronje and Daniel Schwartzkopff in 2017 and is focused on providing end-to-end prescriptive AI for manufacturing plants to improve their operations. What DataProphet does basically is to offer prescriptive advice and suggest changes to manufacturers’ plans thereby helping them to avoid making the mistakes that cause defects that lead to their products being scrapped or reworked.

The company’s flagship AI solution called PRESCRIBE has been proven to make a significant and pragmatic impact on manufacturing operations, and reduce costs by an average of 40 percent. The company also has a range of other products such as its CONNECT which allows manufacturers to augment their data infrastructure and bring data from where they’ve been using it for compliance in the manufacturing space to a point where they can use it for optimization.

According to its CEO who has a degree in management consultancy and statistics, DataProphet uses a hands-on approach – this system allows it to continuously monitor data streams and use this to provide advice and feedback while ensuring that clients follow them. In cases where clients do not follow the advice provided, DataProphet engages with its clients to understand their concerns and see from their perspective. “Usually, when we talk about reducing defects, scrap, or rework by an average, we do a reduction of about 40% when the customer follows our advice. It’s a wonderful application of AI and manufacturing because it’s a deep application of the theory to realize practical, meaningful impact for our customers and their yield,” CEO Frans Cronje said.

DataProphet currently operates a 50-man team serving clients in various fields but mainly in sectors like semiconductor, rubber and foundry, automotive industries, etc. These clients operate in countries such as China, Japan, the US, India, and home country South Africa.

Some of the company’s rivals include Braincube and Seebo. Speaking about what makes DataProphet stand out from its rivals, CEO Frans Cronje said that “I think the way we differentiate ourselves is that we approach this from a holistic factory control where implementing our PRESCRIBE solution can enable a customer to realize this full site optimization. And there’s a second aspect: The solution we’ve got to enable customers to realize yield is an end-to-end prescriptive solution. What I mean by that is that it has the capacity to integrate some of the lowest data levels in factories. And we don’t see that in our competitors.” He also added that DataProphet is fully able to operate on its own and does not need clients’ employees to have data science capabilities, like its rivals.

The funding according to CEO Franc Cronje will be used to invest in its industrial AI product set and to fuel growth in some selected locations and manufacturing verticals. “This is where we’ll be applying a lot of this fund: to support international sales. And they’ll support functions needed in markets away from the major engineering hub, South Africa. So part of the investment will be used to develop a European sales office and subsequently a U.S.-based sales office to support customers and partners abroad,” he explained.

Commenting on the round and the company, Keet van Zyl, co-founder, and partner at Knife Capital said that “Accelerating the international expansion of DataProphet, given the leading nature of its technology, is exactly the mandate of our new Fund — and it couldn’t be more fitting for our first investment to be a follow-on investment from our existing cohort.”