L to R: Kenneth Chan – Founding Engineer,Simon Chan (CEO) Donald Szeto (CTO), Justin Yip – Data Scientist
PredictionIO, an open source machine learning server, has just raised US $2.5 million in seed funding. Investors in this round include Azure Capital (who has backed VMWare and KISSmetrics), QuestVP, CrunchFund, Stanford – StartXFund, Kima Ventures, IronFire, Sood Ventures and XG Ventures.
Dubbed the “MySQL of Prediction,” PredictionIO enables developers and data scientists to build machine learning into products easily with just a few lines of code. PredictionIO’s system is based on user-defined goals and uses custom prediction models for every app.
“We want to make PredictionIO useful for all developers who are building web and mobile apps – we are going to support more predictive engines,” said co-founder and CEO Simon Chan. “Currently we support personalization, product suggestions, trend and churn prediction.”
In the past, only tech giants such as Google and Amazon could afford the PhDs and data scientists needed for AI-related work, but PredictionIO changes this with their open source and adaptive offerings. With a 4,000-strong developer community engaged in their server to date, PredictionIO can support developers at the solopreneur to enterprise level in verticals ranging from eCommerce to food delivery. Visit PredictionIO’s GitHub.
The rest of the PredictionIO team include Donald Szeto (CTO), Kenneth Chan (founding engineer), Justin Yip (data scientist) and Thomas Stone (VP of enterprise) – a stacked team made up of a serial entrepreneur, ex-Googler and Stanford, Berkeley and UCL alums.
According to Simon, his San Francisco-based startup will be opening a Hong Kong engineering outpost come September, and the newly-raised funds will be used to hire developers and data engineers in both offices.
If you want to work for PredictionIO, shoot [email protected] a note!
PredictionIO Demo video:
PredictionIO on Startbase.HK: PredictionIO
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