CEO and co-founder, Gianluca Maruzella, chats about the business’ move to Edinburgh, its global ambitions and how the DDE Programme and AI Accelerator are helping indigo.ai to achieve them.
I met my four co-founders while studying at the Polytechnic University of Milan. The inspiration for indigo.ai arrived in the last moments of my university journey, when I discovered I’d forgotten to fill in the necessary bureaucratic documents to complete my degree. I was stuck in a long line with time running out and, later, over a beer, we decided we could prevent similar problems.
I realised that while we are using artificial intelligence to go to the moon, companies haven’t updated their communication methods in twenty years. We decided to put together a pitch deck and send a prototype to the most important accelerator incubator in Italy, H-Farm. We were selected as one of 10 startups and the story began.
indigo.ai is B2B software service platform that uses deep learning and a virtual assistant to improve the ways businesses communicate with users. It uses state-of-the-art deep learning models, but it’s a no-code platform so it is easy to set up.
We are making it possible for big companies to build better relationships with customers and make their processes more efficient by harnessing data science and providing them with insight.
Data is what drives our engine. The way it’s designed, people don’t have to be data scientists to use it. The businesses that work with us, anyone from marketing to the customer care department can use our technology to build their own conversational AI assistant in the easiest way possible – saving them money while increasing user satisfaction.
We’re already working and generating revenue with UK clients like Santander and Bayer, but we’re at a point where the technology is ready and we’re poised to grow – and our real goal is to compete on a global level. The UK is already one of our biggest markets and the University of Edinburgh is recognised as a centre of excellence of AI applied to language worldwide, so it made sense to focus our efforts here.
The AI Accelerator was a perfect match. For a foreign company like us, it could be difficult to join an ecosystem like Edinburgh’s because you don’t know anyone, but the programme was the ideal way for us to really accelerate our understanding of a different culture and meet the right people at the right time.
Because it is not as big as somewhere like London - you are much more connected. Everyone is willing to help you and you can see the impact of that help.
We are fundraising to expand our team of 20 people. We know what we want to do and we know how to do it, we just need the right fuel in order to fast-track the journey. We are looking for a lead investor and are talking to a lot of potentials right now thanks to the Accelerator.
