Much of the focus of AI has been on data-intensive applications and consumer-facing implementations. Beyond Limits’ cognitive AI platform unleashes the power of AI for some of the most demanding verticals like energy, utilities, and healthcare. The company’s solutions are used to boost operational insights, improve operating conditions, enhance performance, and ultimately, increase profits. The company’s technology originated at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA space missions and is now being leveraged to help some of the largest industrial enterprises and companies address their most pressing challenges with a combination of machine learning and human knowledge.
LA TechWatch caught up with CEO and Founder AJ Abdallat to learn more about the state of the enterprise and industrial AI market, the company’s future plans, and recent funding round, which brings the total funding raised to $158.5M for the company founded in 2014.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
This round of Series C funding was led by Group 42, a prominent AI and cloud computing company, and bp ventures, an existing two-time investor and customer of the Beyond Limits. In total, we raised $133 million at the close of the round.
Tell us about your product or service.
Beyond Limits develops Cognitive AI software systems for demanding sectors, including energy, utilities, and healthcare. Beyond Limits’ Cognitive AI applies human-like reasoning to solve problems, much like how humans form conclusions using inference and logic. This unique approach combines encoded human knowledge with machine learning techniques, which means our systems can adapt and continue operating in situations where data may be missing or in short supply.
What inspired the start of Beyond Limits?
Beyond Limits’ technology evolved out of ambitious NASA projects created by Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and legendary AI Reasoning Laboratory. Our mission is to apply AI technology from space exploration to improve life on earth.
How is it different?
Beyond Limits Cognitive AI technology is a significant innovation because it accelerates human time-to-decision, scales knowledge, and improves consistency in decision-making across the entire operation. Our AI applications identify problems, reason through solutions based on a combination of data and encoded human expertise, deliver recommendations to solve problems, predict the outcome, and produce a transparent audit trail to eliminate the lack of transparency with “black box” AI approaches.
What market you are targeting and how big is it?
We build industrial AI applications for demanding sectors, including energy, utilities, and healthcare. The market for industrial AI applications is sizeable with McKinsey and Company reporting the potential total annual value of AI and analytics across industries is $9.5T – $15.4T, including energy industries targeting $402.7B and healthcare targeting $906.1B.
What’s your business model?
Our Cognitive AI advisors are web-based software systems that provide guidance to decision-makers to solve problems with clear, understandable recommendations. Beyond Limits products are deployed with a SaaS business model and the containerized applications are cloud-agnostic, meaning they can be deployed on any cloud environment, on-premises, or at the edge.
How has COVID-19 impacted the business?
COVID-19 is an opportunity for transformative technology companies like Beyond Limits to do something to help. The pandemic has accelerated the need for medical entities, business, even countries, to start implementing data-driven digital health solutions to help manage their response to the demands of this challenging time. On the public health level, Beyond Limits has collaborated with a renowned medical facility to build the Coronavirus Dynamic Predictive Model, a new dynamic forecasting model to help healthcare and governmental leaders predict the impact of COVID-19 on people, medical facilities, and regional recovery plans.
What was the funding process like?
I started in 1998 as an entrepreneur and encountered three major events: the dot com crash in 2000, Sept 11, 2001, and the 2008 financial crisis. I learned a lot of lessons from each experience and those difficult events have helped me build resilience. I’ve learned how to take calculated risks and to view challenges as opportunities when others would give up. During the funding round, those past learnings helped me to pull through strenuous days and a demanding travel schedule.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Significant challenges face leadership teams during funding since necessary skillsets shift from one funding round to another, meaning the required skills for rounds A & B look very different from those needed in C. I believe it’s important to manage the transition by aligning the right team that believes in the company’s vision. Our perseverance and adaptability paid off significantly with our $133M Series C funding.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Beyond Limits has unparalleled AI capabilities compared to traditional AI approaches. Our technology is proven to drastically boost operational insights, enhance performance, and ultimately increase our customers’ profits as a result. In addition, our business has multiple opportunities for long-term growth, including broad market opportunity, further expansion into new verticals, accelerated geographic growth, and continued advancement of AI technology through our Beyond Labs R&D initiatives.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Beyond Limits is set to achieve our global growth plans in North America, Asia, Middle East, and Europe. We are also excited about expanding our product portfolio with the Beyond Limits Refinery AI advisor, which goes beyond traditional AI to combine human knowledge with machine learning to “think” like an engineer. In high-value industries like the energy sector, every decision is critical to keep large, complex assets running efficiently, reliably, and with the least amount of risk.
What advice can you offer companies in Los Angeles that do not have a fresh
injection of capital in the bank?
My advice would be to think past what appears the most obvious answer. Looking for solutions to problems that may seem unsolvable tends yields the most opportunity. For example, when Beyond Limits first partnered with our strategic investor and customer BP, the price of oil was $28. Other investors said we were crazy for focusing on the energy vertical, but I felt our disruptive AI technology was something truly unique that could really make a difference and be a game-changer for the industry. It was a risk worth taking and proved itself to be the right move.
My advice would be to think past what appears the most obvious answer. Looking for solutions to problems that may seem unsolvable tends yields the most opportunity. For example, when Beyond Limits first partnered with our strategic investor and customer BP, the price of oil was $28. Other investors said we were crazy for focusing on the energy vertical, but I felt our disruptive AI technology was something truly unique that could really make a difference and be a game-changer for the industry. It was a risk worth taking and proved itself to be the right move.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Beyond Limits is committed to playing our part in the complex, yet critical, global challenge of transitioning to a cleaner energy future while still meeting the current energy needs facing our world today. Our technology is designed to optimize efficiency, yielding more economical utilization of resources and reducing waste. We are dedicated to providing AI technology that helps accelerate renewable energy, decarbonization, and carbon-negative initiatives for our customers and industries across the globe.
What is your favorite restaurant in LA?
II Pastaio in Beverly Hills.
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