Have you heard the buzz about generative AI and its potential impact on businesses? It’s a topic generating a lot of hype and attention, especially with major deals like the recent partnership between OpenAI and PwC. However, if you dig past the headlines, you’ll find that the use of customer-facing, no-code AI tools has been gaining traction for years, helping companies extract information and work more efficiently.
Now, one of the early players in this space, Sirion Labs, is acquiring Eigen Technologies, another pioneer in enterprise AI. Eigen Technologies has been focused on parsing and extracting insights and data from documents in industries such as insurance, finance, and law, while Sirion Labs specializes in contracts.
“The deal emphasizes not only the increasing demand for AI in the B2B market, but also a wider trend in enterprise IT – the move towards simpler, all-in-one solutions rather than multiple individual tools.”
Although the financial terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed, the context surrounding the deal sheds some light on the story. Eigen Technologies, based in London, was co-founded by Oxford PhD and inventor Dr. Lewis Liu, who combined his knowledge of art and physics to develop algorithms for natural language processing. Their no-code tools are designed for non-technical users and can summarize and extract meaning from complex, unstructured documents, making it useful for tasks such as compliance and basic search.
The company has raised over $80 million to date and was valued at around $170 million in 2019. Its investors include Goldman Sachs and Dawn Capital. According to Liu, Eigen Technologies had multiple offers on the table, including funding options, but ultimately chose to join forces with Sirion Labs due to their shared vision.
“We already had a partnership with Sirion Labs due to the way enterprises are buying IT, and it quickly became apparent that we had a joint vision. I will be joining the team as chief AI officer and we will be setting up a new hub in London.”
Based in India, Sirion Labs has focused on applying AI to contract lifecycle management. Like Eigen Technologies, their tools leverage generative AI and allow for conversational queries to extract information from contracts. They also offer AI to analyze contract terms and identify loopholes. Currently, they integrate with larger models to power their tools, but also have their own dataset and intelligence engine.
According to Sirion Labs’ CEO and founder Ajay Agrawal, the company has raised $110 million in their last funding round and is now valued at $1 billion. Their clientele includes over 250 large enterprises managing more than 7 million contracts worth $800 billion. While they are not yet profitable, Agrawal predicts the company has 1-2 years of runway left and they are open to potential acquisitions.
“In the next 18-24 months, there will be a consolidation mindset in our space and there are endless possibilities for AI. We have already received interest from various parties.”
On the other hand, Sirion Labs is also exploring potential M&A opportunities with larger players in the system of record market, such as SAP, Salesforce, and Oracle. With more alliances like these on the horizon, Agrawal believes that consolidation is inevitable in the AI landscape.
“We receive inbound interest from everyone. It’s safe to say the future holds plenty of exciting developments for our company.”
Keep an eye on this space for more updates from Sirion Labs as they continue to make their mark in the AI world.
