Towards the end of last year, we covered a series of surveys which identified the main issues preventing AI technologies moving from pilots to being rolled out across organizations. One of the key issues was difficulties in transforming fragmented and unstructured data into AI friendly formats. So this week, we lead with news that C5i, an AI and analytics company, has bought Datavid, a data & AI company that helps organizations transform fragmented, unstructured and siloed data into trusted, AI-ready data architectures using advanced data and graph engineering, knowledge graph design and semantic modelling.

The deal has a number of synergies. Datavid’s expertise significantly enhances C5i’s ability to leverage and deploy knowledge graph capability as well as its clinical and R&D capabilities for pharma companies, all of which complement C5i’s current focus and strength in the commercial side of the life sciences sector. For Datavid, it gets an opportunity to scale its technology across C5i’s global client base.

The transaction is expected to complete at the end of March and Equirus Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Datavid and its shareholders.

In other news..

1. Health Universe to integrate AI agents into healthcare organizations with $6mn capital injection
   Kleiner Perkins has led the USD 6mn Seed funding round for Health Universe, an enterprise AI platform that automates ‘complex healthcare workflows’. The company will use the funding to accelerate adoption across leading academic medical centers, health systems and life sciences organizations. This latest round of investment follows a Pre-Seed round in which the company raised funding from Susa Ventures, Twelve Below and Oncology Ventures.
   Health Universe has raised a total of USD 9.5mn to date.
2. Sequential secures $3.5mn for AI-powered platform for skin ingredients
   Sequential, a skin microbiome company, has raised USD 3.5mn for its first equity round to build an AI-powered discovery platform for multi-omic testing and next-generation skin health ingredients. The funds will be used to develop an AI-powered discovery engine built on the company’s proprietary real-world clinical data set, which will enable the prediction, optimization and discovery of next-generation active complexes and novel bioactive ingredients. Investors in the round are Sparkfood, Corundum Systems Biology, Dermazone Holdings, SOSV, Scrum Ventures, continued support from Innovate UK and an angel investor. With this round of funding, the company has raised USD 7.5mn in dilutive and non-dilutive funding to date.
3. Rubi raises $7.5mn in new funding, secures more than $60mn in offtake agreements
   Rubi has raised USD 7.5mn in fresh funding from AP Ventures, FH One, Inc., Talis Capital, H&M Group, CMPC Ventures and Understorey. The chemical manufacturing company will use the funding to build a demonstration scale of its cellulosic production system. It has also booked more than USD 60mn in non-binding off-take agreements.
4. Allure Security completes Series B round for AI-native defense
   Allure Security, an AI-native disinformation defense company, has closed a USD 17mn Series B round led by Riverside Acceleration Capital, with existing investors Curql, Glasswing Ventures and Gutbrain Ventures also participating. The investment comes at a time of increasing AI-powered fraud, with cybercrime losses up 33% year on year, with phishing and spoofing being the most frequently reported attack category.
   The company, which has raised a total of USD 43mn, will use the funds to accelerate platform expansion and GTM scale.
5. Condor Software secures $24mn to build financial intelligence platform for life sciences
   Financial intelligence platform for life sciences, Condor Software, has closed a USD 24mn Series A round of funding to accelerate its expansion, bolster enterprise capabilities for pharmaceutical companies and scale its engineering, product, design and customer success teams.
   With AI reshaping drug discovery and development, the financial infrastructure which determines which programs get funded is run on spreadsheets that require manual reconciliation across disconnected CRO portals, ERP systems and accounting tools. Condor Software is changing that and, according to the company, has built a platform that automatically consolidates clinical, operational and financial data.
   Other investors in the round are Felicis, 645 Ventures, Pamir Ventures, SNR Ventures, Prebys Ventures and Bramalea Partners. The company has raised USD 36mn to date.
6. Tenkara raises funds to build ops agents for US manufacturers
   Tenkara has secured USD 7mn in funding to build the next-generation tooling for supply chains. True Ventures led the round, with participation from HFO, WndrCo, Articulate Capital, Night Capital, SFI, Transpose and angel investors.
   Tenkara is supporting procurement teams, which at mid-market companies are often small, to source materials, track costs, manage logistics and stay compliant. It is doing so by building next-generation tooling for supply chains, one which takes on the back-office burden so that lean teams can operate like much larger organizations.
7. Run Ventures invests in CometChat to expand next-generation AI agent platform
   CometChat, an in-app communication platform, has raised USD 6.5mn from existing investor Run VC to execute the company’s AI expansion strategy. This means over the next twelve to eighteen months, the company will focus on scaling AI deployments, expanding GTM and building vertical leadership.
   The platform enables businesses to deploy conversational AI agents without code or specialized AI expertise. To date the company has raised USD 21.1mn.