With support from BayStartUP, Spanish AI and tech startup Citibeats has successfully closed its early-stage funding of 1.5 million Euro. The lead investor is Telefónica Wayra. H&S Investment GmbH from the BayStartUP investor network, Bankinter, IDB Lab, Everis and IESE Business Angels are also involved.
With 60 million euros in early-stage capital arranged annually, BayStartUP manages the largest investor network in Europe. Startups have access to around 300 business angels and 100 early-stage institutional investors here. H&S Investment GmbH's involvement came about through the "VentureCon Bavaria" investor conference, which BayStartUP organised in May 2019 in cooperation with the Business Angels Europe Club, an association of the largest European business angel networks, among others. The event is part of the BayStartUP Venture Conferences.
At the heart of Citibeats, which was founded in Barcelona in 2015, is an adaptive, intelligent and AI-powered text analysis software. Citibeats can recognize, understand and consolidate information from the large amount of data created by people in real time, trends and topics.
The technology works with internal data sources from clients and can also analyze texts from various external web sources such as forums, social media posts and discussions – in any language, contextually and location-independently. The software also understands, for example, when identical words are used in different meanings depending on the country or topic. Companies, organizations and public institutions can monitor the development of relevant issues and public opinion, identify critical issues more quickly and make decisions more efficiently.
Citibeats‘ goal is to use intelligent software to map the opinions and wishes of citizens at an early stage and to include them in political or entrepreneurial decisions. The solution is particularly relevant, for example, in situations that are of great importance to civil society, such as environmental and social issues or acute catastrophes. Other areas of use are major infrastructure projects or the development of sustainable tourism strategies, in which the voice of citizens can now be involved at an early stage.
Investor Dr. Martin Heubeck, founder and managing partner of H&S Investment GmbH, says:
Citibeats has developed a very powerful, functioning and scalable AI platform that opens up a wide range of applications. It is already being used successfully in practice in two areas, banks and municipalities. Because there is also no AI platform that can be put into operation more quickly, we believe in accelerated growth in the coming years. After all, the company fits perfectly into our portfolio's focus on future technologies.
His co-partner Ulrich Stommel points out that the next step will be internationalization, both in Europe and beyond, and to make the company better known in the target markets.
Citibeats has already received several awards for its solution, including the first company to receive two United Nations World Summit Awards. Citibeats‘ customers include government institutions such as the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, universities and companies, especially in the financial and commercial sectors.
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