Inspeq AI Raises $1.1 Mn In Pre Series A Round

Responsible AI development platform provider Inspeq AI today raised USD 1.1 million (about Rs 9.13 crore) in a pre-series A investment round. Specialist AI investment firm Sure Valley Ventures led the funding round with participation from Delta Partners. Other investors in the round include Plug and Play and several marquee angel investors, including Gaurav Singh Kushwaha (Founder and CEO of BlueStone), Prateek Dixit (Founder of Pocket FM), Rick Kelly (Former MD of Meta Ireland), Cyril Treacy (Former VP of Salesforce) and other tech executives.

Inspeq AI was founded in 2023 in Dublin, Ireland, by senior tech leaders Apoorva Kumar (formerly at Microsoft, SAP, Amazon and Informatica) and Ramanujam Macharla Vijayakumar (formerly at LinkedIn). The company has built an enterprise-ready LLM Ops platform to help developers evaluate and improve their enterprise AI applications. The company’s platform promises to make Gen AI app development up to 4x faster. The platform also promises to cut down development costs by up to 70 per cent. Inspeq AI said it plans to use this investment to expand its product development team and extend its marketing and sales operations in India, Ireland and the UK.

“This investment will greatly accelerate Inspeq AI's growth trajectory as we work towards advancing AI safety and performance on a global scale,” says Inspeq AI Co-founder and CEO Apoorva Kumar. “Winning the backing of such marquee investors also moves us closer to realising Inspeq AI's mission to become the global leader in safe and reliable AI.”

Recent cases of production-grade Gen AI applications going wrong have highlighted the challenges businesses face in scaling Gen AI. “By using Inspeq AI as an ops layer, businesses can overcome these bottlenecks, ensuring trust, safety, and ethical standards. We are thrilled to be working with significant global enterprise companies, like HCL, helping them develop production-grade Gen AI applications that immensely benefit their customers,” Apoorva added.

Managing Partner of SVV, Barry Downes said: “After our first meeting with Apoorva and Ramanujam , we knew right away that they were the sort of founders we wanted to back. Their knowledge of the AI space was extremely impressive, as was their commitment to ensuring that companies develop and use AI in a positive and constructive way. We look forward to working alongside our co-investors to support Inspeq  on their exciting growth journey for many years ahead.”