SA AI startup Verascient raises $1.2 M funding to assist companies build better teams
Verascient, a South African startup, has received ZAR19.5 million (US $1.2 million) to assist businesses in leveraging AI to create teams that are quicker and more competent.
Verascient, a Cape Town-based company founded by Keagan Stokoe and Emile Ferreira, provides the operating system and knowledge businesses require to effectively utilize AI.
The startup creates the workflows and agents that enable teams to leverage knowledge that is dispersed over documents, systems, and persons in their daily work.
Founder Collective, Andrena Ventures, Cambridge Enterprise, Summit Ventures, Alan Knott-Craig, Shayne Mann, and other chosen angel investors supported Verascient’s oversubscribed ZAR19.5 million round.
“At the centre of Verascient’s technology is a temporal knowledge graph designed to build and maintain a comprehensive understanding of an organisation, ensuring that information that was once scattered quickly becomes securely available to AI agents while preserving the history, permissions and provenance behind the information,” said Ferreira.
“There is a significant difference between giving employees access to an AI tool, and building a company that can operate intelligently with AI. Verascient bridges that gap by working directly with businesses to understand how their people and processes operate, and providing the secure infrastructure that enables AI agents to understand the organisation, work within its existing systems and access controls, and deliver valuable results.”
Stokoe said the raise would enable the startup to build a “small, exceptional team of engineers and AI builders”.
“We are looking for high-agency people with the curiosity, technical depth and ambition to build something meaningful to solve real-world problems. We’re looking for the top one per cent of AI talent, who are excited to take genuine ownership with the freedom to do the best work of their lives,” he said.
