As part of Spark Lab's ongoing series to spotlight successful European technology companies in New York, we are kicking off with Frankfurt/NYC-based Arago (www.arago.co)
After KKR&CO (www.kkr.com) announced $55M investment in this German firm that develops artificial intelligence software, Arago has been on a tear in the States. Recently announcing clients like UBS and NITT just to name a few.
Look for more profiles of great European tech in this monthly series!
Why did you launch the company?
Arago’s Founder Chris Boos has a mission: empowering human potential, freeing up time for creativity and innovative thinking through artificial intelligence (AI). To that end, Chris founded Arago in Germany in 1995, pushing existing boundaries in AI technology to build a general AI. In 2014 Arago partnered with KKR (an American multinational private equity firm) to scale and internationalize business. HIRO (Human Intelligence Robotically Optimized) is a problem solving AI for enterprise IT operations that we test in real commercial applications within enterprises. It has also recently started playing human players at online strategy game FreeCiv.
What attracted you to artificial intelligence in the first place?
Prior to founding Arago, Chris was a well-known algorithm expert and a strong believer in integrating machine reasoning and machine learning. He has been speaking on AI for the last 25+ years and as one of business’ only lead researches in artificial intelligence who is also a CEO, his thoughts on the man-machine-relationship and the way societies deal with information and the future of labor are sought after the world over.
Currently, Chris is very interested in the network effect that platform companies (Facebook, Amazon...etc.) have via a near monopoly on the consumer lifecycle. Chris recently spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt and CNBC.
Who did you raise money from?
In 2014 Arago raised $55M (through a minority stake in the business) from KKR to scale and internationalize business in the U.S., UK, and India.
What's next for your business?
Chris Boos has some very lofty goals for general AI, including utilizing it to advance the collection of raw materials in space. Within the day-to-day of Arago, our goal is to create full autonomy in business process for our clients so that more happiness can be brought about in the workplace via creativity and human-to-human interaction. We are also creating a data pool that is accessible to established companies who cannot access that of the networked platforms (think Facebook/Amazon) to give them the same advantage in AI and data. Having European roots, this is somewhat of an advantage for us because we have better data protection laws.
Who are your customers?
All of our clients are global companies. To name a few, we have UBS, Klockner and VirtusaPolaris. Klockner is one of the largest producer-independent distributors of steel and metal products worldwide. VirtusaPolaris is a leading global IT company. What we have found is that most of our companies keep managers close to their clients -- meaning here in NY.
How much revenue do you have?
Since we are not a public company, we do not disclose revenue figures.
Where are you based?
We recently moved into a tech hub on University Street near Union Square, very close to Spark Labs! We were blown away by the welcome of the NY tech scene. Being in NY is very important to us on the client side. When you consider that what we are offering is 85 to 90% automation, that’s a major change to company hierarchy. So to be right where so many Fortune 500 are placed is important.
