Contextual AI Raises $80 Million to Scale Enterprise AI Platform

Contextual AI has raised $80 million in a Series A funding round to scale operations and accelerate the go-to-market for its production-grade large language models (LLMs) for enterprises.

The company launched in 2023 and has since deployed its enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) platform in production with Fortune 500 companies and published research on its RAG 2.0 technology, according to a Thursday (Aug. 1) press release.

Its platform lets enterprises build RAG 2.0 applications in minutes and customize them with end-to-end machine learning (ML), according to the release.

“Enterprises can deploy the platform on our secure SaaS [software-as-a-service] infrastructure or on-prem within their own environment,” Contextual AI said in the release. “With on-prem deployment, there’s no need to send your data to external APIs — we bring the model to your data ensuring your security boundaries are maintained.”

In addition, the company has created Contextual Language Models (CLMs) that were trained using RAG 2.0, power the Contextual AI platform, and deliver more accurate applications than RAG implementations, per the release.

The platform supports a wide range of use cases, including technical customer support and investment research and information discovery, according to the release.

Marcie Vu, partner at Greycroft, which led the funding round, said in the release that Contextual AI is working to seize “a generational market opportunity.”

“When Greycroft invested in their seed financing, we foresaw the potential of RAG technology to revolutionize AI in the enterprise,” Vu said. “CEO Douwe Keila, who pioneered RAG at Meta in 2020, and his team have since garnered recognition from customers and top talent for their unparalleled expertise.”

While experimenting with potentially disruptive use cases of generative AI is relatively easy, taking those use cases and scaling them up across enterprise workflows in a way that unlocks real business value represents a much more challenging hill to climb, PYMNTS reported in August 2023.

Firms must decide which innovative offerings and foundational LLM platforms are the right fit for their own purpose and must do so at a time when the AI landscape is becoming increasingly crowded.

Generative AI solutions that move beyond general-purpose applications to fit-for-purpose solutions provide a better way to do business.

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