Encord, the AI data development platform known for its advanced vision and multimodal capabilities, has announced a significant milestone today—a $30 million Series B funding round. This investment was spearheaded by Next47, a global venture firm specializing in early and expansion-stage companies in SaaS, AI, and enterprise sectors. The round also saw participation from existing investors Y Combinator, CRV, and Crane Venture Partners.
The effectiveness of AI models is intrinsically linked to the quality of the data they are built upon. However, enterprises often face the challenge of managing siloed, uncurated, and unprepared data, which can severely hinder AI model development. This issue represents a major bottleneck in the broader adoption of AI technologies. Additionally, the expansion of AI underscores another pressing problem: the scarcity of well-curated, high-quality data and the insufficient number of human domain experts required to prepare and evaluate this data effectively.
Encord aims to tackle these challenges head-on by leveraging automation. Unlike traditional methods that rely heavily on human supervision, Encord provides AI teams with the tools necessary to make large datasets AI-ready, thereby accelerating the journey from data to production. The platform addresses all four critical steps in turning data into AI: data management, curation, annotation, and model evaluation. By consolidating these processes into a single platform, Encord allows companies to trace the decision-making process of their models, identify weaknesses, and determine the specific data needed for retraining to achieve better outcomes.
Co-Founder and President of Encord, Ulrik Stig Hansen, emphasized the future ubiquity of AI departments in enterprises. “In 10 years, every company will have an AI department in the same way that they have an IT department today or risk losing relevance. Encord will be the only platform they need to accomplish the process of turning data into functional AI models,” Hansen stated. He highlighted that as AI models begin to tackle increasingly complex problems, the access to and management of data will become even more critical. Encord’s automation-led approach provides a scalable solution to support customers at every step of their AI journey.
Adding to its suite of tools, Encord is also launching Encord Index, an end-to-end data management tool designed to simplify the management and curation steps of the AI development process. Encord Index allows customers to visualize, search, sort, and control their internal data, integrating seamlessly with data storage solutions such as AWS S3, GCP Cloud Storage, and Azure Blob. This tool automates the curation of the best data while removing uninformative or biased data. As a result, Encord customers have reported a 35% reduction in dataset size, a 20% improvement in model performance, and significant cost savings in compute and human annotation.
Victor Riparbelli, Co-Founder and CEO of Synthesia, a billion-dollar generative AI company, praised Encord Index for its high-performance system. “Successful state-of-the-art models, like our recently released Expressive Avatar foundation model EXPRESS-1, require highly sophisticated infrastructure. Encord Index supports our continuous efforts to push the boundaries of AI avatar technology and meet customer needs,” Riparbelli said.
Built on the foundation of vision, Encord is well-positioned to lead the multimodal era, managing data for AI models based on images, videos, medical imagery, visual language, voice, and more. With over 2,000 predictive and generative models in production, Encord is trusted by more than 120 top AI teams, including organizations like Synthesia, Philips, Zoopla, Cedars-Sinai, and Northwell Health.
T.J. Rylander, General Partner of Next47, highlighted the innovation Encord brings to the data layer of AI. “Encord’s forward-thinking platform addresses one of the biggest challenges in AI today – understanding and managing the data that will give enterprises high-quality, reliable outcomes from their AI applications, therefore lowering the risk of AI implementation. The market has long needed a solution for the AI data problem, and we are proud to back Encord as the startup that has found it.”
For those interested in learning more, Encord will be hosting a roundtable discussion at the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in London from September 30 to October 1.