Element AI was an

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

company headquartered in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. It was funded by the

Government of Canada The Government of Canada (), formally His Majesty's Government (), is the body responsible for the federation, federal administration of Canada. The term ''Government of Canada'' refers specifically to the executive, which includes Minister of t ...

for CAD$5 million, and raised US$102 million independently, before being acquired by

ServiceNow ServiceNow, Inc. is an American software company based in Santa Clara, California, that supplies a cloud computing platform for the creation and management of automated business workflows. It is used predominantly for the automation of informati ...

. Prior to its acquisition, it had collaborated with

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

Singapore Management University Singapore Management University (SMU) is a publicly funded private university in Singapore. Founded in 2000, SMU is the third oldest autonomous university in the country, modelling its education after the Wharton School. The university is trip ...

, the Port of Montreal,

LG Electronics LG Electronics Inc. () is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational major appliance and consumer electronics corporation headquartered in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, South Korea. LG Electronics is a part of LG, LG Corporation, the fourth ...

, Agile Data Solutions and others to release several studies.

History

Element AI was founded in October 2016 by Jean-François Gagné and co-founders

Yoshua Bengio Yoshua Bengio (born March 5, 1964) is a Canadian-French computer scientist, and a pioneer of artificial neural networks and deep learning. He is a professor at the Université de Montréal and scientific director of the AI institute Montreal In ...

, Anne Martel, Nicolas Chapados, and Philippe Beaudoin, along with Jean-Sébastien Cournoyer of Montreal venture capital fund Real Ventures. In early 2017, the company acquired the entire team of an open source machine learning database. It then raised US$102 million from US investors in a

series A round A series A is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. It can be followed by the word round, investment or financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in excha ...

led by the San Francisco venture fund Data Collective and Microsoft Ventures. In December 2018, the

gave a loan of up to CAD$5 million to Element AI with the goal of creating 900 new jobs. They later hosted a conference on the effects of AI, with

Justin Trudeau Justin Pierre James Trudeau (born December 25, 1971) is a Canadian politician who served as the 23rd prime minister of Canada from 2015 to 2025. He led the Liberal Party from 2013 until his resignation in 2025 and was the member of Parliament ...

and

Mounir Mahjoubi Mounir Mahjoubi (born 1 March 1984) is a French entrepreneur and politician of La République En Marche! (LREM) who served as a member of the National Assembly from June to July 2017 and from 2019 to 2022. From 2017 until 2019 was the Secretary ...

establishing a global panel to study the effects of AI. In December 2018, Element AI also partnered with

and released a study measuring online abuse against women in politics and journalism on

. Element AI had partnerships with

GIC GIC may refer to: Education * Ghana Insurance College, in Accra, Ghana * Government Intermediate College, a type of school in India * Grait International College in Nigeria * Gyosei International College in the U.K., defunct Finance * General ...

, the

Port of Montreal The Port of Montreal (, ) ( ACI Canadian Port Code: 0395, UN/LOCODE: CA MTR) is a cruise and transshipment point. It is located on the St. Lawrence River in Montreal, Québec, Canada. The port operates as an international container port. It serv ...

, among others. 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. The company's first standalone product Underwriting Partner, an AI-assisted insurance underwriting workflow software, was released in September 2019. In December 2019, they released Knowledge Scout, a platform for data set management in manufacturing companies. On November 30, 2020,

, a Californian cloud-based IT services company, announced it has signed an agreement to acquire Element AI. The company was running out of money and options and sold for US $230 million.

References

{{Reflist Artificial intelligence companies Companies based in Montreal Canadian companies established in 2016 2021 mergers and acquisitions