Peak Raises $75M to Democratize AI App Development

AI-Powered Decision Making: Peak AI Secures $75 Million in Funding

The integration of artificial intelligence into enterprise-level applications is accelerating, and a startup focused on empowering businesses – particularly those without extensive technical expertise – to create bespoke AI decision-making tools has recently received substantial investment. Peak AI, headquartered in Manchester, England, has secured $75 million in funding to further develop its decision intelligence platform, broaden its market reach, and expand its team by approximately 200 employees in the coming months.

Series C Funding Led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2

This Series C funding round is spearheaded by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from existing investors including Oxx, MMC Ventures, Praetura Ventures, and Arete. These same investors contributed to Peak’s $21 million Series B round, finalized in February of this year. To date, the company has raised a total of $119 million, though the specific valuation remains undisclosed.

Reports regarding this latest funding surfaced last week, but were not officially confirmed until now, and initial estimates of the funding amount proved inaccurate.

Driven by Strong Performance and Market Demand

According to Richard Potter, CEO of Peak, the swift follow-on funding was largely driven by strong inbound interest and the company’s impressive performance.

Peak’s Decision Intelligence platform assists retailers, brands, manufacturers, and other organizations in optimizing stock management, crafting personalized customer experiences, and streamlining various processes. It enables a degree of automation while also providing the sophistication needed to evaluate diverse factors and generate insightful intelligence.

A Growing Customer Base and Revenue Growth

Notable clients of Peak include prominent companies such as Nike, Pepsico, KFC, Molson Coors, Marshalls, Asos, and Speedy. Over the past year, the company has experienced a revenue increase exceeding 100%.

The core challenge Peak addresses is the accessibility of AI. While AI is now fundamental to many advanced IT applications and business processes, organizations lacking a strong technological foundation often rely on pre-built applications that may not be fully tailored to their specific needs. The costs associated with developing customized solutions can often be prohibitive.

Peak asserts that its tools enable users to achieve, on average, a 5% increase in revenue, a doubling of return on ad spend, a 5% reduction in supply chain costs, and a 12% decrease in inventory holdings – a significant expense for many businesses.

Platform Focus and Market Dynamics

It’s important to note that Peak’s platform isn’t currently a fully “no-code” solution, though that remains a future aspiration. It is primarily designed for data scientists and engineers within organizations, allowing them to readily identify processes that could benefit from AI integration and implement those solutions with minimal complexity.

Several market trends have contributed to Peak’s success. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digital transformation initiatives and increased the demand for efficient e-commerce processes to address rising consumer expectations and strained supply chains. This has prompted businesses to invest more readily in intelligent automation tools.

This positive momentum, coupled with Peak AI’s robust revenue growth, attracted the attention of SoftBank.

SoftBank’s Strategic Investment and Portfolio Synergy

SoftBank has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to AI and is actively expanding a segment of its investment portfolio dedicated to providing strategic services to its portfolio companies.

This includes businesses in the e-commerce and consumer-facing sectors, which constitute a significant portion of Peak’s customer base.

Earlier this year, SoftBank made a substantial investment in another Manchester-based company, The Hut Group, acquiring a $730 million stake (with the potential for an additional $1.6 billion investment). The Hut Group develops software for and operates direct-to-consumer businesses.

Vision for the Future of Enterprise AI

“In Peak we have a partner with a shared vision that the future enterprise will run on a centralized AI software platform capable of optimizing entire value chains,” stated Max Ohrstrand, Senior Investor for SoftBank Investment Advisers. “To realize this a new breed of platform is needed and we’re hugely impressed with what Richard and the excellent team have built at Peak. We’re delighted to be supporting them on their way to becoming the category-defining, global leader in Decision Intelligence.”

While direct collaboration between SoftBank’s investments in Manchester remains uncertain, the synergy is noteworthy and underscores a key area of focus for the firm.

Expanding Platform Accessibility

Looking ahead, it will be crucial to observe how Peak evolves its platform to broaden accessibility to a wider range of users within its existing customer organizations.

Potter anticipates that individuals with technical backgrounds will likely be the primary users of its products in the short to medium term. However, he acknowledges the broader trend in software development – to create versions of tools originally designed for data scientists that are accessible to less technical users.

“I do think it’s important to democratize the ability to stream data pipelines, and to be able to optimize those to work in applications,” Potter concluded.