DataChat, a Madison company that developed an intelligence interface that allows business users to extract insight from their data simply by talking to a chatbot, has raised $4 million to build its team and customer base, the company announced Wednesday.
DataChat was created at the University of Wisconsin-Madison by computer science professor Jignesh Patel. The round of funding was led by Silicon Valley venture capital firms WRVI Capital and Nepenthe Capital. Other participants included individual investors from Google and Santa Clara, California-based cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks.
"We're building technology that represents the future of how people get insights from their data," said Patel, who runs the company as its CEO. "It's a sophisticated technology that cuts across multiple disciplines in computer science, including data science and AI. We needed smart money to fuel our vision and this round does exactly that."
Patel and Rogers Jeffrey Leo John, a former UW-Madison graduate student, founded DataChat in June of 2017. Patel sold one of his previous startups to Twitter in 2013 and is one of 15 people appointed to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.'s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Committee, which was created to develop opportunities for startup companies in Wisconsin.
DataChat received a federal $100,000 phase 2 Small Business Innovation Research matching grant last year to commercialize its interface. The company has used its technology to build a data-based website for the WEDC called Wisconsin Supplier Network, which lists several different Wisconsin industries that businesses can find additional information for as well as statewide suppliers.
They include aerospace manufacturing, automotive, defense, energy, power and controls, food and beverage, forest products, marine manufacturing and water technology. The new website also includes active requests for proposals posted by local companies.
