Elemental Cognition Raises $60 Million with IBM Watson Scientist at the Helm

David Ferrucci, an esteemed pioneer in artificial intelligence and the leader of the renowned IBM Watson team, has successfully raised nearly $60 million in funding for his latest AI venture, Elemental Cognition. This impressive achievement was revealed in a recent regulatory filing.

The filing, submitted on Thursday, discloses that Elemental Cognition sold $59.95 million in equity to 17 investors. It also outlines the company’s plans to raise an additional $5.75 million.

Headquartered in the iconic Helmsley Building in New York City, Elemental Cognition aims to develop AI systems that possess advanced decision-making capabilities. The company offers two innovative chatbot products, Cogent and Cora, which cater to various industry needs such as financial services, interactive travel planning, and research discovery in life sciences.

Before establishing Elemental Cognition, Ferrucci achieved international recognition for leading IBM Watson from 2006 to 2012. During his tenure, Watson famously emerged victorious on the game show “Jeopardy!” Following his time at IBM, Ferrucci served as the head of AI research at Bridgewater Associates, one of the largest hedge funds globally. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Ferrucci is supported by a team of seasoned professionals at Elemental Cognition, many of whom also hail from IBM and Bridgewater Associates, including David Shepler, the company’s Chief Operating Officer, and Eric Brown and Mike Barborak, both Vice Presidents.

Elemental Cognition boasts an impressive roster of investors and advisors. Jim Breyer, the founder and CEO of Breyer Capital and an early investor in Facebook, is among the notable individuals associated with the company. The esteemed list also includes former IBM CEO Sam Palmisano, Greg Jensen (Bridgewater’s co-Chief Investment Officer), and Geoff Yang of Redpoint Ventures.

CNBC reached out to Elemental Cognition for comment but did not receive a response.

This year, AI startups have garnered significant attention following the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a powerful AI chatbot. Although Elemental Cognition’s website does not place significant emphasis on generative AI, the extraordinary field that has captured widespread interest, its LinkedIn page proclaims the company’s pioneering approach to developing a revolutionary Generative AI platform, which leverages superior natural language understanding for expert problem-solving intelligence and research & discovery applications.

Elemental Cognition differentiates itself through its hybrid AI platform, which combines large language models (LLMs) with an AI-powered reasoning engine. This unique fusion ensures that responses remain within defined parameters, a crucial feature that sets Elemental apart from ChatGPT.

IBM Watson, which was IBM’s initial foray into AI, ultimately did not yield substantial profits. In January of last year, IBM sold its Watson Health unit to private equity firm Francisco Partners for an undisclosed amount. Recently, IBM introduced WatsonX, a development studio that enables companies to “train, tune, and deploy” machine learning models.

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