3 months ago
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Intelmatix, a deep tech b2b startup that’s targeting businesses in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region wanting help to tap into the power of AI for decision-making, has closed a $20 million Series A funding round – one of the largest such rounds for a regional company of this type.
The startup, which has offices in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, London, U.K. and Boston, U.S. was founded back in 2021 but only launched its enterprise AI platform, EDIX, in March 2024. It told TechCrunch it’s picked up 10 enterprise customers so far — but flush with fresh funding the plan is to expand its targeting to medium and smaller businesses, too.
The global enterprise AI market is projected to grow exponentially to reach $68.9 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 43.9%, according to BCC research, with growth driven by investments in AI technologies and the increased adoption of AI solutions by companies looking to spur efficiency and remain competitive.
Yet even as the adoption of AI decision-making solutions takes off in business there are plenty of challenges, as IBM has observed — including access to AI skills and expertise; data complexity; integration issues, high costs; lack of tools for AI model development; and ethical concerns.
For regions such as MENA, uptake of automated decision-making has been slow as most enterprise AI solutions are not customized to local needs, making them impractical for companies eyeing AI, argues Dr. Anas Alfaris, co-founder and CEO of Intelmatix. This is where the startup aims to step in to help with local data, knowledge and expertise.
“[Rival AI enterprise] platforms are designed and trained on datasets from the U.S., and don’t digest data that includes the contexts of the MENA region. These platforms have also been designed for large enterprises that have invested in both infrastructure and in [data science and AI] teams, which is another major problem in the region because there is a talent gap,” Alfaris told TechCrunch, pointing to the likes of U.S.-based o9 and Palantir as key competitors.
These are challenges Intelmatix has sought to address with its flagship AI-powered enterprise decision intelligence platform, EDIX, which Alfaris says can be deployed quickly across businesses and does not require an AI team to use.
The startup is currently focused on retail, logistics and workforce sectors, where businesses can unlock intelligence on operational and strategic issues like demand and supply, location, recruitment, staff planning and scheduling, fleet management and marketing.
A chain store tapping the EDIX software suite could, for instance, get recommendations on the best location to open a new branch and its projected revenue with an accuracy of 80%, per Alfaris.
“Today, the majority of enterprises have no access to AI capabilities, and we’re giving them 80% of that capability. We might not give them 100% yet, but we’re moving the needle from zero to 80 by immediately making it accessible,” he said. “That’s really the core of why EDIX is what it is, and why we invested in building it in our region… to make AI truly accessible by removing a lot of the complexity.”
The startup’s marketing pitch paints a picture of MENA businesses no longer needing to guess their next move anymore, as EDIX is designed to answer and provide recommendations immediately — meaning it can be used for both operational and strategic decisions. Alfaris said Intelmatix’s decision intelligence algorithms use client and other contextual data sourced by the startup to power the recommendations.
“Decision making is highly connected. You can’t make a decision in marketing that’s going to increase the demand on your stores without connecting that immediately to your inventory to understand what is going to happen there. Same thing with your staffing and operations. Decisions are highly integrated. Yet the small tools that exist out there today that some entities use are highly siloed, and very particular to a specific function within an enterprise — although these are useful, you need a one-stop shop,” he argued.
During a year-long pilot of its technology in the food and beverage sector, Intelmatix said its platform’s accuracy on demand forecasting improved by 15%; wastage costs fell 75%; additional over-time shrank by 25%; and the platform was able to predict revenue for new branch locations with over 80% accuracy.
The art of decision-making is something Alfaris is very familiar with — having led research exploring the interconnectedness and complexity of decision-making at the Center for Complex Engineering System of the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) in Saudi. This was after he left MIT where he earned his PhD in Design Computation and was part of various research teams including the Smart Cities Group at Media Lab.
He helped create the center in 2012 as a joint program of MIT and KACST, which led to another program, dubbed the Joint Centers of Excellence Program, that carried out research projects with other top tier universities and tech firms in the U.S and U.K. It was also at KACST that Alfaris met his Intelmatix co-founders, Ahmed Alabdulkareem and Almaha Almalk, ahead of the startup’s launch in 2021.
Intelmatix’s plan now is to shoot for greater scale by targeting large and medium businesses as well public entities in MENA. The new funding will also be used to expand its platform’s capabilities and reach, per Alfaris.
“We plan to expand our offerings of these suites to offer more decisions and more functions that we believe could be of use to our clients,” he said. “The idea of democratizing access to AI has always been something that we’ve been very passionate about.”
The Series A round was led by Shorooq Partners, with participation from private and public entities including Olayan Financing Company, Rua Growth Fund, Saudi Technology Ventures, Saudi Venture Capital Company, Sultan Holdings and Zain Ventures.
