{"id":546,"date":"2023-03-25T11:51:34","date_gmt":"2023-03-25T11:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/solonangel.com\/?p=546"},"modified":"2024-02-15T14:43:06","modified_gmt":"2024-02-15T14:43:06","slug":"press-ottawa-based-mindbridge-ai-raises-4-3m-seed-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/solonangel.com\/press-ottawa-based-mindbridge-ai-raises-4-3m-seed-round\/","title":{"rendered":"Press: Ottawa-based MindBridge AI raises $4.3M seed round"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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MindBridge AI<\/a> needs to expand to meet demand, and founder Solon Angel<\/a> says its $4.3-million seed round is just enough to take the company to the next level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ottawa-based firm develops artificial intelligence technologies aimed at preventing fraud, alerting auditors to suspicious or anomalous activity in the books. Just a few months ago, MindBridge AI was selected to participate in the Bank of England\u2019s FinTech accelerator program<\/a>, where it will use its AI Auditor tool in collaborations with the massive institution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The round, which officially closed last Friday, includes members of Ottawa\u2019s Capital Angel Network and Fresh Founders, as well as funds such as Toronto-based MaRS Investments and Montreal-based Real Ventures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Angel tells OBJ that the round will allow MindBridge AI to meet the international demand for its product. The company currently has 25 staff at its Ottawa headquarters and seven based in Europe and the United States; the seed round will allow the company to add another 10 employees in the next quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some companies may find it tempting to raise as much money as possible, Mr. Angel says MindBridge AI had to turn away some prospective investors. He chalks the company\u2019s prudent investment approach to CEO Eli Fathi, a veteran entrepreneur who co-founded and sold Ottawa-based Fluidware to SurveyMonkey in 2014<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s business fundamentals first,\u201d Mr. Angel says, and as such the company was not keen to raise more money than the company needed to reach the next level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of people were not happy with us\u2026 we could\u2019ve taken way more money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Fathi hand-picked the funds the company would be working with, too. Real Ventures, for example, was one of the funds behind a $102-million investment in Montreal-based Element AI<\/a> that was announced last week. Element AI\u2019s chief executive was even in the room as MindBridge pitched the fund, and Mr. Angel says he\u2019s confident the Montreal-based fund knows what it\u2019s doing in artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silicon Valley-based fund 8VC was also involved in MindBridge\u2019s seed round. The fund counts former prime minister Stephen Harper among its advisers, which Mr. Angel says was one of the main reasons the company accepted the investment. He says 8VC\u2019s core values of government accountability align well with MindBridge\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey believe the world is broken, and it needs to be fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Harper has kept a low-profile since the 2015 federal election in which the Conservative Party lost to Justin Trudeau\u2019s Liberals, launching a Calgary-based consulting firm after resigning as a Member of Parliament in August, 2016. In a post on Medium<\/a> announcing he would join the advisory board of 8VC in April, he praised the firm\u2019s work across multiple sectors, specifically mentioning financial transactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c8VC is at the leading edge, tackling the deep and difficult problems that institutions and citizens are facing today,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MindBridge AI needs to expand to meet demand, and founder Solon Angel says its $4.3-million seed round is just enough to take the company to the next level. The Ottawa-based firm develops artificial intelligence technologies aimed at preventing fraud, alerting auditors to suspicious or anomalous activity in the books. Just a few months ago, MindBridge AI was selected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/solonangel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/solonangel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/solonangel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solonangel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solonangel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/solonangel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1346,"href":"https:\/\/solonangel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546\/revisions\/1346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solonangel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/solonangel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solonangel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solonangel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}