Cognitive Automated Platform Company FortressIQ Raises $16 Million

By Annie Baker • Dec 4, 2018

San Francisco-based cognitive automation platform company FortressIQ announced that it has raised $12 million in Series A funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners. This new capital extends upon $4 million in seed funding from Boldstart Ventures, Comcast Ventures, and Eniac Ventures. And it brings the company’s total funding to $16 million.

Over the last 18 months, FortressIQ worked with corporate transformation teams to build artificial intelligence to work handle some of their most pressing needs. The lack of detailed information current state of operations is one of the biggest obstacles for companies.

“We’re thrilled to partner with a premier enterprise investor like Lightspeed, which has deep knowledge of the Global 2000 and their digital needs,” said FortressIQ founder and chief executive Pankaj Chowdhry. “After speaking with hundreds of companies it became clear that the dollars being wasted on process assessments and documentation are a ‘tax on innovation,’ siphoning dollars from transformation initiatives. To address this grim reality, we’re delivering on the promise of cognitive automation with the GA release of our platform, putting us in a strong position to build on the sales momentum and traction we’re already experiencing with Fortune 500 companies.”

One of the biggest inefficiencies for corporations is that billions of dollars and millions of hours are spent generating documentation. Due to the diversity, age, and customization of enterprise applications, it has made technical solutions for this problem tough to solve. And often times, it can take months to set up a single business function.

FortressIQ’s Virtual Process Analyst changes how companies acquire knowledge of their operations by learning a business process and the permutations as they occur in real-time. Then it analyzes and provides valuable insights to guide operational changes. This is done by tapping into computer vision, natural language, and sequence modeling technology. The Virtual Process Analyst does not require integration and it works with all of the most used applications on-premise or cloud-based.

“FortressIQ’s technology provides the insights necessary for a global organization to integrate the digital workforce into their operations,” added Lightspeed partner Nakul Mandan. “We think the company’s strong management team, with its data-driven approach, is uniquely positioned to alter the expensive, slow and inefficient methodologies that prevent businesses from fully realizing their digital transformation initiatives today.”