Transform 2021

Elevate your enterprise data technology and strategy.

July 12-16

(Reuters) — Primer, a San Francisco-based startup that offers a natural language processing platform used by U.S. national security agencies and others, on Tuesday said it raised $110 million in its latest funding round.

The company also announced a partnership with data analytics firm Palantir Technologies and that the Primer platform will be available in Microsoft’s Azure cloud.

While natural language processing is commonly used for transcription services, Primer CEO and founder Sean Gourley said the platform can also analyze text and write a summary.

“It allows you to automate the human reading and writing tasks that would otherwise be very expensive to perform,” Gourley said.

“When you do deploy these things at scale across all of the documents that you have as an organization or an enterprise, you’re going to see patterns and structures inside that data that individual analysts would miss just because they’re not looking at enough volume of information.”

The Primer platform is available in English, Russian, Chinese and Arabic, but is only sold to customers in the United States and its allies given the national security applications, Gourley said.

One such use has been identifying disinformation campaigns in real time through a machine learning platform that Primer developed for the United States Air Force and Special Operations Command.

The funding will be used to expand Primer’s engineering team and grow the market. It plans to expand its languages to include Spanish, and will target the financial and pharmaceutical industries, said Gourley.

The latest funding round was led by venture capital firm Addition. Existing investors include In-Q-Tel, the Central Intelligence Agency’s venture capital firm.

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VentureBeat is proud to bring back the Women in AI Breakfast and Awards online for Transform 2021. In the male-dominated tech industry, women are constantly faced with the gender equity gap. There is so much work in the tech industry to become more inclusive of bridging the gender gap while at the same time creating a diverse community.

VentureBeat is committed year after year to emphasize the importance of women leaders by giving them the platform to share their stories and obstacles they face in their male-dominated industries. As part of Transform 2021, we are excited to host our annual Women in AI Breakfast, presented by Capital One, and recognize women leaders’ accomplishments with our Women in AI Awards.

Women in AI Breakfast:

VentureBeat’s third annual Women in AI Breakfast, presented by Capital One, will commemorate women leading the AI industry. Join the digital networking session and panel on July 12 at 7:35 a.m. Pacific.

This digital breakfast includes networking and a discussion on the topic surrounding “Women in AI: a seat at the table.” Our panelists will explore how we can get more women into the AI workforce, plus the roles and responsibilities of corporates, academia, governments, & society as a whole in achieving this goal.

Featured speakers include Kay Firth Butterfield, Head of AI and Machine Learning and Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum; Kathy Baxter, Principal Architect, Ethical AI Practice, Salesforce; Tiffany Deng, Program Management Lead- ML Fairness and Responsible AI, Google; and Teuta Mercado, Responsible AI Program Director, Capital One. Registration for Transform 2021 is required for attendance.

Women in AI Awards: 

Once again, VentureBeat will be honoring extraordinary women leaders at the Women in AI Awards. The five categories this year include Responsibility & Ethics of AI, AI Entrepreneur, AI Research, AI Mentorship, and Rising Star.

Submit your nominations by July 9th at 5 p.m. Pacific. Learn more about the nomination process here.

The winners of the 2021 Women in AI Awards will be presented at VB Transform on July 16th, alongside the AI Innovation Awards. Register for Transform 2021 to join online.