IntelmaticsA B2B deep tech startup targeting businesses in the Middle East and North Africa that want to help harness the power of artificial intelligence in decision-making has closed a $20 million Series A funding round — one of the largest for a regional company of its kind.
The startup, which has offices in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; London, UK; and Boston, US, was founded in 2021 but only launched its AI platform, EDIX, in March 2024. It told TechCrunch it has landed 10 enterprise customers so far — but with the new funding, the plan is to expand its targeting to medium and small businesses as well.
The global artificial intelligence market is expected to grow significantly to reach $68.9 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 43.9%, according to Basal cell carcinoma researchwith growth driven by investment in AI technologies and the increasing adoption of AI solutions by businesses looking to drive efficiency and maintain competitiveness.
However, even as AI-based decision-making solutions begin to be adopted in the business world, there are plenty of challenges, as IBM has shown. Note – Including access to AI skills and expertise; data complexity; integration issues; high costs; lack of tools to develop an AI model; and ethical concerns.
Dr. Anas Al Fares, co-founder and CEO of Intelmatics, says that adoption of automated decision making has been slow in regions like the Middle East and North Africa, where most enterprise AI solutions are not tailored to local needs, making them impractical for companies targeting AI. The startup aims to step in with local data, knowledge and expertise.
“[Rival AI enterprise] The platforms are designed and trained on datasets from the US and do not accommodate data that includes MENA contexts. These platforms are also designed for large companies that have invested in both infrastructure and [data science and AI] “Startups are another major issue in the region because there is a talent gap,” Al Fares told TechCrunch, pointing to companies like o9 and US-based Palantir as major competitors.
These are the challenges that Intelmatix has sought to address with its leading AI-powered business intelligence platform, EDIX, which Alfaris says can be quickly deployed across enterprises and does not require an AI team to use.
The startup is currently focusing on the retail, logistics and workforce sectors, where companies can unlock information on operational and strategic issues such as supply and demand, location, recruitment, employee planning and scheduling, fleet management and marketing.
A retail chain using the EDIX software suite, for example, can get recommendations on the best location to open a new store and its projected revenue with up to 80% accuracy, according to Alfaris.
“Today, the majority of companies don’t have access to AI capabilities, and we’re providing them with 80% of that capability. We may not be 100% yet, but we’re moving the needle from zero to 80% by making it available right away,” he said. “That’s the essence of why EDIX is what it is, and why we invested in building it in our region…to make AI truly accessible by removing a lot of the complexity.”
The startup’s marketing plan shows that businesses in the MENA region no longer need to guess what to do next, as EDIX is designed to respond and provide recommendations instantly – meaning it can be used for operational and strategic decisions. Al Fares said Intelmatix’s decision intelligence algorithms use customer data and other contextual data obtained from the startup to power the recommendations.
“Decision making is closely linked. You can’t make a marketing decision that will increase demand in your stores without immediately linking that to your inventory to understand what’s going to happen there. The same goes for staffing and operations. Decisions are very integrated. Yet the little tools that exist today that some entities use are very siloed, very specific to a specific function within the organization—while they are useful, you need a one-stop shop.”
During a year-long trial of its technology in the food and beverage sector, Intelmatics said its platform’s accuracy in forecasting demand improved by 15%; waste costs decreased by 75%; overtime was reduced by 25%; and the platform was able to forecast revenue for new store locations with more than 80% accuracy.
The art of decision-making is something Al-Fares is very familiar with—he led research exploring the interconnectedness and complexity of decision-making at the Center for Complex Engineering Systems at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) in Saudi Arabia. This was after leaving MIT, where he earned a PhD in design computing and was part of various research teams, including the Media Lab’s Smart Cities group.
He helped establish the center in 2012 as a joint program between MIT and KACST, which led to another program, the Joint Centers of Excellence, which has conducted research projects with other top universities and technology companies in the United States and the United Kingdom. At KACST, Alvares also met the founders of Intelmatix, Ahmed Abdulkarim And The Maliki Oryxahead of the startup’s launch in 2021.
Intelmatics now plans to expand its reach by targeting large and medium enterprises as well as public entities in the MENA region. The new funding will also be used to expand the capabilities and reach of its platform, according to Al Fares.
“We plan to expand our offerings from these suites to deliver more decisions and more functionality that we think could be useful to our customers,” he said. “The idea of democratizing access to AI has always been something we’ve been very passionate about.”
The first funding round was led by Shorooq Partners, with participation from public and private sector entities including Olayan Financing Company, Vision Fund for Growth, Saudi Technology Ventures Company, Saudi Venture Capital Company, Sultan Holding Company, and Zain Ventures.