Educate machines to read: Deep-Tech Startup Natif.ai secures seed financing

September 10, 2020

The Saarbrücken-based Deep-Tech Startup Natif.ai announces the successful closing of a seven-digit financing round with the lead investor High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF). Thanks to revolutionary AI models and a self-developed Deep-OCR, various documents can be analyzed extremely quickly, accurately and relevant data can be extracted. Natif.ai thus enables a fast and efficient way to productively bring artificial intelligence into the economy. With this financing, the founding team is investing in personnel and infrastructure to meet the strong market demand.

Artificial intelligence and the automation of business processes is an exciting field for investors, large companies and software providers, especially in times of crisis. Natif.ai has developed revolutionary AI models that help companies and business software providers to significantly optimize document-based processes and reduce costs.

The experienced team of founders in combination with a superior technology that delivers significantly better capturing rates than all competing products convinced us. We are pleased to be able to accompany and support natif.ai in its further expansion.

Christian Arndt, Investment Manager at High-Tech Gründerfonds

 It has never been more important to map processes in a lean, cost-efficient and digital way. No company can afford to give away resources. By analyzing invoices with unprecedented speed and accuracy and extracting relevant data, our customers can reduce the associated costs by up to 90% – even compared to previous solutions on the market.

co-founder Johannes Korves

This is particularly important for banks, retailers as well as insurance companies and opens up completely new ways of using data.

The experienced team of founders had already proven before that they can successfully build up start-ups and lead them to an exit. The serial entrepreneur Christophe Hocquet and Johannes Korves were significantly responsible for the sale of Brille24 as managing directors and most recently led the digital online business in Germany at the listed company Essilor-Luxottica. Their co-founder, Manuel Zapp, was in charge of the research and development department and consistently focused on the use of artificial intelligence, having previously worked at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). There he accompanied machine learning projects for DAX companies. The founding team is completed by Berenger Laurent, the former CTO for the international business of Brille24 and in a leading position at the technology department of BNP Paribas.

The start-up was founded in Saarbrücken and is an official spin-off of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), which is also known beyond Germany for its expertise in the field of artificial intelligence.

The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and Saarland University offer excellent opportunities to be successful in a highly complex market, to access the latest developments from research and the academic world and to attract talented people in the field of machine learning to the company at an early stage.

co-founder Manuel Zapp

The funds from the financing round will be used both to scale up the development team at the Saarbrücken site and to expand the market.

About Natif.ai
Natif.ai is a deep-tech start-up in the field of intelligent document process automation (IDP). Thanks to high-performance AI models and a self-developed Deep-OCR, a wide variety of documents can be analyzed extremely quick, accurate and relevant data is extracted. Natif.ai provides a fast and efficient way to productively bring artificial intelligence into the economy. It was founded by a German-French team and is an official spin-off of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI).

Contact
Natif.ai GmbH
Campus A1 1
66123, Saarbrücken
Johannes Korves
T.: + 49 172 153 13 76
Johannes.korves@natif.ai

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) is a seed investor that finances high-potential, tech-driven start-ups. With around EUR 900 million in total investment volume across three funds and an international network of partners, HTGF has already helped forge almost 600 start-ups since 2005. Driven by their expertise, entrepreneurial spirit and passion, its team of experienced investment managers and startup experts help guide the development of young companies. HTGF’s focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digital tech, industrial technology, life sciences, chemistry and related business areas. To date, external investors have injected over EUR 2.6 billion into the HTGF portfolio via more than 1,600 follow-on financing rounds. HTGF has also successfully sold interests in more than 100 companies.

Investors in the public-private partnership include the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy, KfW Capital, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and 32 companies. Our Fund Investors
www.htgf.de/en

Contact
High-Tech Gründerfonds Management GmbH
Christian Arndt, Investment Manager
T.: +49 228 82300 171
c.arndt@htgf.de