A Manchester-based artificial intelligence (AI) start-up has raised $75m in a funding round with the world's largest technology investor and is now set to create more than 200 jobs over the next 12 months.
The confirmation comes after BusinessLive reported last week that SoftBank's Vision Fund II had agreed to acquire a stake in Peak, which counts PepsiCo and the fashion retailer PrettyLittleThing among its clients.
The news also comes after Peak announced in February it was to create 130 jobs after it raised $21m through a Series B funding round led by London-based venture capital firm Oxx, with participation from MMC Ventures and Praetura Ventures and new investor Arete.
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At the time, the move brought Peak’s total funding raised to $43m.
Co-founder and CEO Richard Potter said: "Today we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve raised a $75m Series C funding round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 with all our existing investors participating alongside.
"This is a huge milestone on Peak’s journey to change the way the world works.
"Our mission has always been to build a new kind of tech company, one that really moves the needle for our customers’ businesses and one that everyone in our community loves being a part of.
"We would be nothing without our community of forward thinking customers and the day-to-day users of the Peak platform.
"We’re proud and humbled every day to be working with you and we’re as committed as ever to making a real, meaningful difference with you.
"It means we’ll be bringing the power of Decision Intelligence to more and more businesses around the world, further democratizing AI in the enterprise and growing our community as we do so.
This funding also means we’ll be investing even more into our product and R&D initiatives. As we’ve grown, the true power of AI to transform the way companies operate has become even clearer.
"Our platform is driving transformational results for our customers and gains that are adding millions to the top and bottom line of many of your businesses.
"This is because the Peak platform is built like no other. It puts AI in the hands of business users directly through our suite of Decision Intelligence solutions, while enabling data teams to work at a pace and scale they can’t with traditional tooling and infrastructure.
"We’ll be investing heavily in new platform features and capability, such as our recently announced data bridge for Snowflake, to give our customers even more power to solve their hardest problems and create the future on Peak.
"To achieve all of this we’re working hard to grow our team and to develop our talent, globally.
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"We hope to welcome more than 200 new Peakers in the coming 12 months as we grow in the UK, India and USA.
"What’s more, we’ll also be celebrating our community at AltitudeX on November 4th, our new conference bringing commercial leaders, data scientists and engineers together, all under one roof. Come and join in the fun!
"On behalf of everyone at Peak, thank you for being a part of our community. Thank you for being part of the Decision Intelligence movement. Thank you for making this journey such a fun and exciting one. "
Max Ohrstrand, senior investor, SoftBank Investment Advisers, added: "In Peak we have a partner with a shared vision that the future enterprise will run on a centralised AI software platform capable of optimizing entire value chains.
"To realise this a new breed of platform is needed and we’re hugely impressed with what Richard and the excellent team have built at Peak.
"We’re delighted to be supporting them on their way to becoming the category-defining, global leader in Decision Intelligence."
