A Silicon Valley artificial intelligence startup backed by some heavy hitters in the field has entered the European market via Serbia.
Node, which bills itself as the “first turnkey AI-as-a-service platform” focused on powering predictable business outcomes, has opened a new office in Novi Sad, Serbia. The US firm says it will be “hiring top talent” as part of its European expansion.
Node has raised $36m in funding from American entrepreneur Mark Cuban, Avalon Ventures, NEA, NewView Capital, GingerBread Capital, Canaan Partners, JetBlue Technology Ventures and a host number of other investors.
Node was founded by Falon Fatemi. Prior to Node, Fatemi spent over a decade focused on go-to-market strategy, global expansion and strategic partnerships at Google, YouTube and elsewhere in the startup world.
Fatemi now leads a team of technological innovators including the “Godfather of Search”, Louis Monier, who created Alta Vista, and Michael Radovancevich, former CTO of Taleo (acquired by Oracle for $1.9bn) and OpenX (a leading independent advertising platform for Google).
Node’s deep-learning platform powered by “Artificial Intuition” leverages people and company data to help businesses predict and identify which prospects are likely to become customers, which customers - even happy ones - are likely to churn, and which key talent is likely to leave, “even before they know they're disengaged”, said the firm.
“This continues to be a transformational year for Node and we are thrilled to continue the momentum by opening this new office in Novi Sad,” said Fatemi. “We’re honoured to invest in the talented technical AI community in Serbia and look forward to growing our business within this vibrant region.”
“The opportunity to do cutting-edge AI development for a Silicon Valley startup in Serbia has attracted top talent,” said Radovancevich. “Node technology makes a huge difference to those who adopt it and we have only just started. We have a first-class team here in Novi Sad and look forward to continued investment across all product development disciplines as we build out our AI platform and products.”
Existing Node clients include Mitel, Nutanix, Information Builders, Yesware, ConnectAndSell, Aventri and the Dallas Mavericks basketball team.
