Seldon Technologies

IMPACT CASE STUDY

DEPLOY, MONITOR AND EXPLAIN MACHINE LEARNING MODELS. WITH THE WORLD’S LEADING MLOPS PLATFORM

We are enabling the rapid deployment of machine learning models so organisations can tackle their most important challenges and pass on critical improvements and benefits to consumers. CIC’s expertise and support has helped us realise our mission to democratise this technology and accelerate the adoption of machine learning.

ALEX HOUSLEY

CEO

IMP RATING: A – ACT TO AVOID HARM

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

Seldon’s mission is to accelerate the adoption of machine learning to improve business performance and manage risk. To achieve mass uptake, it’s essential to democratise technologies that were previously the preserve of tech giants – to put them in everyone’s hands. In 2015, Seldon launched its first open-source release which has become one of the world’s most popular machine learning platforms. A year later, as part of Barclays Techstars, we began building applied artificial intelligence use cases alongside the brightest minds in finance and technology. Today, we host TensorFlow London, a community of over 1,600 data scientists and machine learning enthusiasts, and we are a guest advisor to the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for Artificial Intelligence.

IMPACT THESIS

Machine learning is a subcategory of artificial intelligence, where data are used to train a computer to make a decision based on previous results. The learning element is unique as these models will continue to retrain themselves over time as they provide more results. Machine learning enables organisations to make decisions faster than a human could and often at a higher rate of accuracy.

The MLOps process can be challenging for enterprises. The data science teams are tasked with the training of the models but the deployment and monitoring of these requires a different set of skills. It is the job of the machine learning engineers to build the infrastructure that supports the model, deploy it to production, and provide ongoing maintenance. Seldon’s product bridges the gap between these two skillsets, allowing for more effective collaboration and a more successful artificial intelligence program.

Seldon’s software increases the speed of deployment, enabling its customers to report an average gain of 84% on productivity, taking the deployment time for these companies from months to minutes, enabling tangible benefits, such as improved safety and better pricing, to be passed onto consumers.

IMPACT SUMMARY

Within healthcare, Seldon’s customers, for example Johnson and Johnson or Exscientia, are making ground-breaking advancements in drug discovery and patient diagnosis. They are using our software to deploy artificial intelligence for multiple use cases, such as image classification to detect cancerous cells without the need for invasive clinical procedures, which in turn leads to an earlier diagnosis and access to life saving treatments. More broadly, artificial intelligence is also used to predict the success of drug trials thereby reducing the time to market of life saving oncology drugs.

Financial services and insurance is another key industry for Seldon, where customers are able to accurately predict and manage risk in ways they have not been able to before. For example, in only four months, Coveá used Seldon’s software to deploy artificial intelligence that increased profitability by cancelling fraudulent policies and delivering instant, explainable and personalised quotes to their customers. All of this contributed to cheaper and more transparent prices for the consumer, in a way that lowered the risk of any potential bias and/or discrimination as a result of the deployment of artificial intelligence. Companies in the automotive sector, for example Ford and Audi, are using Seldon’s software and machine learning to optimize supply chain and manufacturing processes such as crack detection and predictive maintenance, resulting in more robust, efficient and safer vehicles.

Our environmental, social and governance policies

As a Series A investor, we are often the first institutional investor to invest in a company. This provides us with an ideal opportunity to instil best practices at an early stage.

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

Within our internal operations, we adopt best practices to reduce our carbon footprint and protect natural resources. These include managing energy use within our office, supporting sustainable commuting for employees and minimising the carbon footprint of our corporate travel.

Within our investment practice, we do not invest in companies whose principal activity requires the extraction of fossil fuels. Instead, we proactively seek investment opportunities in companies that accelerate the transition to a lowcarbon economy.

We encourage all our portfolio companies to incorporate an assessment of carbon impact and natural resource security into business decisions, including product design, manufacturing, distribution, consumption and end-of-life product disposal. Where material ESG risks are identified, we work with the portfolio company to implement an action plan to address the risks over an appropriate timeframe.

We facilitate the sharing of best sustainability practices between our portfolio companies and the broader Cambridge innovation ecosystem. This includes providing educational workshops and tools for our portfolio companies on identifying and reducing environmental risks.

SOCIAL POLICY

We recognise that the human capital within the CIC team and our portfolio companies is our most valuable asset. Our social policy is focused on growing and strengthening this human capital base. Advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in its recruitment and people management policies is central to our core values and culture. Furthermore, it is essential that our team reflects the demographics and cultural mix of the entrepreneurs leading our portfolio companies and the customers and partners of those companies.

We require gender and ethnic diversity on all shortlists for recruitment to new CIC positions.

We encourage all portfolio companies to undertake an assessment of labour standards within their supply chains to identify any areas of potential concern in terms of workers’ rights, either with the current sources of raw materials or component parts, or with potential future sources as the business scales up.

We require all portfolio companies to annually report on the diversity profile of their workforce and we engage with portfolio companies on strategies for improvement.

We track how compensation is distributed in each portfolio company. We provide benchmarks for appropriate cash and equity compensation required to recruit and retain world-class talent within our portfolio.

We require all portfolio companies to have in place clear strategies and processes for consumer protection.

GOVERNANCE POLICY

We require all our employees, and those of our portfolio companies, to comply with all relevant laws and regulations and uphold the highest standards of business integrity. Our employees, and those of our portfolio companies, must not accept any bribes and must declare any conflicts of interest.

Our portfolio companies must comply with all appropriate regulations for employee health and safety, GDPR, consumer data protection and cybersecurity.

We regularly review the board composition of each portfolio company to ensure it is appropriate for the needs of the company. We encourage portfolio companies to set diversity targets for board composition and report annually on these targets.

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015 the United Nations introduced 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)1 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. More and more investors are using the SDGs as a framework on measuring impact, helping shift the focus of market participants and academics towards purpose and positive impact.

The SDGs call for a united effort to achieve a shared set of targets and indicators, within which businesses and investors can differentiate and communicate their roles based on their social/environmental goals and performance.