AskBrian, the startup specialized in applied artificial intelligence and provider of AI-based digital assistant Brian, today announced the closing of its angel funding round. Experienced business angels Björn Kolbmüller and Paul Schwarzenholz (founders of Zenloop and Flaconi) led the investment round with the participation of private investors from leading management consultancies (Bain & Company, Oliver Wyman, EY, and Stern Stewart & Co.) along with several experienced entrepreneurs.
The company, founded by management consultant Pavol Sikula (Stern Stewart & Co., Roland Berger), uses narrow AI technologies to build products that connect humans with state-of-the-art services and information via natural language. Multiple building blocks are orchestrated by the co-founder and CTO Matthias Ruppel (T-Systems) who brings his experience as a software architect and big data specialist. “We see large potential in this very innovative approach of connecting humans and knowledge. We are excited to help the experienced and dedicated founders to fulfill their ambitious mission,” said Björn Kolbmüller.
The funding is meant to support Brian’s further development. The AI assistant communicates via email and performs time-consuming tasks that reflect the needs of management consultants and similar knowledge workers. Brian empowers users to focus on high-value activities by taking care of tedious ones such as document translation (100 languages), file conversion, industry benchmarks, country research, presentation graphics, and many more. “With the additional funds, we can teach Brian to handle a wider range of tasks and provide the best data to our users. Soon he will provide financial analysis,” said Pavol Sikula, CEO of AskBrian.
“From our own experience as consultants, we know that productivity is key; we want to maximize the time we invest in our clients and minimize the time spent on repetitive and less value-adding tasks. We are convinced that many companies need to provide their teams with intelligent support in times of rising complexity and demands. Hence, my colleagues from Amber Invest and I have decided to join the team of angel investors supporting Brian, as we believe it is the right product at the right time to tackle this challenge,” said Jens Torchalla, angel investor of Amber Invest.
