Calgary startup targets financial sector with AI model built to give consistent answers.
Calgary’s Chata Technologies announced the closure of $10 million USD ($13.8 million CAD) in Series A funding with plans to leverage the investment toward scaling its proprietary AI across the financial sector.
“We are entering an era where precision is the only currency that matters.”
Kelly Cherniwchan, Chata.ai
Announced early Wednesday morning, the company saw major investments from private markets asset manager 7Ridge, as well as Izou Partners, which will see partner Jeremie Bacon join Chata’s board. Both 7Ridge and Izou are new investors to Chata, with other Series A investments coming from existing shareholders, including founder and CEO Kelly Cherniwchan.
A provider of self-service analytics that allows users to access data through plain, natural language, Chata (which is commonly known as Chata.ai) said this round of investment signals strong institutional support for the company.
Capital from the round will drive an “aggressive” expansion of the company’s platform, with an emphasis on traditional finance, decentralized finance, and the wealthtech sector, according to a release issued by the company.
Investment comes thanks to interest in Chata’s unique, deterministic AI model. A deterministic model learns to follow rigid logic based on training data, ensuring the same input always creates the same output. That’s different from the more common probabilistic (or generative) AI models that predict a “most likely” answer, resulting in responses that can change even with the same input.
That difference in approach allows Chata to move away from resource-heavy GPU processes, instead utilizing CPU processing. Likewise, it means the platform is capable of delivering 100 percent consistent responses to user queries.
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“We are entering an era where precision is the only currency that matters. Neither financial professionals nor software developers—whether they are managing institutional clients or analyzing on-chain [decentralized finance] activity—can afford ‘likely’ answers; they need consistency,” said Cherniwchan in a press release.
Certainty is a key factor in bridging the gap between AI and regulated financial markets, which have been wary of things like generative AI’s tendency to hallucinate, particularly in financial environments where mistakes can have serious financial ramifications.
“Chata.ai’s technology addresses a fundamental inefficiency in the financial markets: the inability to access trusted data in real-time without technical intermediation,” said Veronica Augustsson, partner at 7Ridge in a release. “Their CPU-based deterministic model is not just a technical differentiator, it is a commercial game-changer that offers the scalability and audit trail required by the world’s most demanding financial institutions.”
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Feature image courtesy Chata.ai, via LinkedIn.