Sequoia leads $13m round for Australian AI start-up

Additional participants included Airtree Ventures, Westpac Banking Corp’s venture arm Reinventure, and IAG Ventures, a division of Insurance Australia Group which recently launched an AI and fintech incubator in Sydney. The new capital is expected to underpin an Asian expansion drive, including the opening of a new office in Hong Kong next month as well as possible bases in Singapore and China.

Hyper Anna was founded last year with a view to automating big data analytics for corporate clients, especially in financial services. The company’s flagship product is a voice-operated AI program known as Anna, which is designed to allow non-technical users to access actionable insights in under six seconds.

"Machines have historically struggled with understanding true intention in conversation. These nuances, which humans describe as 'reading between the lines', are incredibly important in a business context," Natalie Nguyen, co-founder and CEO of Hyper Anna, told The Australian Financial Review. "Anna allows you to communicate as if you were speaking to a colleague. Rather than taking what you say in isolation, it understands it in the context upon which you operate.”

Westpac and IAG are among Hyper Anna’s early clients and have reportedly tracked almost tenfold increase in usage of the technology since contributing to a $1.2 million seed round for the company last October. The company has also partnered with Microsoft and has operated via the software giant’s Azure cloud computing service.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Technology
• Financials
• Early-stage
• Sequoia Capital
• AirTree Ventures
• Financial Services