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Cien to open AI, data science center in Barcelona after raising €1.6M

- December 19, 2018

AI-powered sales productivity app maker Cien announces today that it is building an AI and data science “Center of Excellence” in Barcelona after raising €1,575,000.

The leading provider of AI-powered sales productivity solutions, today announced it closed a seed equity round and obtained financing, via Spain’s Center for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI).

cien ai data science barcelona

Rob Käll

“We are honored to have passed CDTI’s stringent due diligence process, as only the most ambitious and viable businesses qualify,” said Cien CEO Rob Käll in a statement.

The proceeds totaling over $1.8 million (€1.6 million) will among other things be used to fund a Center of Excellence (CoE) for data science and artificial intelligence (AI) in Barcelona.

The purpose of the Center is to understand B2B buyer and seller behavior by analyzing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) data.

cien ai data science barcelona

Ben Strum

“I’m extremely pleased with the quality of talent we’re able to recruit. A big reason is that we have been able to establish partnerships with top local research universities that all have internationally recognized data scientist programs, such as Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and Pompeu Fabra University (UPF),” said Ben Strum, Co-Founder and CTO at Cien.

Based in Dallas, Texas and with offices in Miami, Florida and Barcelona, Spain, Cien’s AI-powered sales productivity app has been adopted by B2B SaaS companies around the world.

According to IDC Research, AI-powered CRM activities will boost business revenue by $1.1 trillion by 2021 and more than 50% of B2B tech companies are already implementing or planning on introducing AI in their operations.

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Cien’s data scientist’s built the underlying processing architecture which now serves close to 100 million AI predictions per day, uncovering tens of millions of dollars of lost sales productivity for enterprise customers.

The company gives sales leaders an immediate edge by using the power of artificial intelligence to increase the productivity of their teams. The mobile app automatically detects problems, predicts outcomes and recommends the shortest path to success.

Specifically for startups, the challenge often posed by AI is a lack of prior data. This is what’s called the “cold start” problem. At its core, AI is a pattern recognition technology.

If you don’t have a lot of historical data, some patterns may be harder to detect. Cien is solving that problem, since in its models, it can match your current situation to similar situations experienced by similar companies and give you the benefit of their experience.

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Tim Hinchliffe

Tim Hinchliffe the editor in chief at Novobrief. Previously, he was a reporter for The Ghanaian Chronicle in West Africa, and Colombia Reports in South America. Principal at Espacio.

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