Element AI

Element AI was an artificial intelligence company headquartered in Montreal, Quebec.^[1][2] It was funded by the Government of Canada for CAD$5 million,^[3] and raised US$102 million independently,^[4][5][6][7] before being acquired by ServiceNow.^[8][9] Prior to its acquisition, it had collaborated with Amnesty International, Twitter, Singapore Management University, the Port of Montreal, LG Electronics, Agile Data Solutions and others to release several studies.^{[10][11][12][13]}

Element AI

Company type	Private
Industry	Artificial intelligence
Founded	October 2016; 8 years ago (2016-10)
Headquarters	Montreal , Canada
Parent	ServiceNow
Website	www.elementai.com

History

Element AI was founded in October 2016 by Jean-François Gagné and co-founders Yoshua Bengio, Anne Martel, Nicolas Chapados, and Philippe Beaudoin, along with Jean-Sébastien Cournoyer of Montreal venture capital fund Real Ventures.^[1][4][14] In early 2017, the company acquired the entire team of^[15] an open source machine learning database. It then raised US$102 million from US investors in a series A round led by the San Francisco venture fund Data Collective and Microsoft Ventures.^[4][5][6][7]

In December 2018, the Government of Canada gave a loan of up to CAD$5 million to Element AI with the goal of creating 900 new jobs.^[3] They later hosted a conference on the effects of AI, with Justin Trudeau and Mounir Mahjoubi establishing a global panel to study the effects of AI.^[16] In December 2018, Element AI also partnered with Amnesty International and released a study measuring online abuse against women in politics and journalism on Twitter.^[10][11]

Element AI had partnerships with GIC, Singapore Management University, the Port of Montreal, LG Electronics, among others.^[12][13] At the Port of Montreal, Element AI was working to predict how long trucks will wait to drop off or pick up goods at the port.^[13]

The company's first standalone product Underwriting Partner, an AI-assisted insurance underwriting workflow software, was released in September 2019.^[17][18] In December 2019, they released Knowledge Scout, a platform for data set management in manufacturing companies.^[19]

On November 30, 2020, ServiceNow, a Californian cloud-based IT services company, announced it has signed an agreement to acquire Element AI.^[8][9] The company was running out of money and options and sold for US $230 million.^[20][21]