This company founded by a Pakistani is valued at $1.6 billion

[RiazHaq]

http://www.riazhaq.com/2017/04/pakistani-americans-tech-unicorn-files.html

Washington D.C. based AI technology firm Afiniti, founded by serial Pakistani-American entrepreneur Zia Chishti, has filed for initial public offering (IPO) at $1.6 billion valuation, according to VentureBeat.

Zia Chishti founded his first company Align Technology in 1997 in Silicon Valley. It creates clear plastic braces for straightening teeth by using advanced 3-D computer imaging. The technology now trademarked as Invisalign has helped millions of people straighten their teeth for a beautiful smile without enduring the pain and unsightly looks of the traditional steel brackets and wires used in orthodontics. Align Technology is now valued at $10 billion.

Afiniti:

Afiniti uses artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to enable real-time, optimized pairing of individual call center agents with individual customers in large enterprises for best results. When a customer contacts a call center, Afiniti matches his or her phone number with any information related to it from up to 100 databases, according to VentureBeat. These databases carry purchase history, income, credit history, social media profiles and other demographic information. Based on this information, Afiniti routes the call directly to an agent who has been determined, based on their own history, to be most effective in closing deals with customers who have similar characteristics.

Investors in Afiniti's latest round include GAM; McKinsey and Co; the Resource Group (TRG); G3 investments (run by Richard Gephardt); Elisabeth Murdoch; Sylvain Héfès; John Browne, former CEO of BP; Ivan Seidenfeld; and Larry Babbio, a former president of Verizon. The company has now raised more than $100 million, including the money previously raised, according to VentureBeat's sources.


Zia Chishti and Kelsey Wirth
Align Technology:

After graduating from Stanford Business School, Chishti wore braces when working as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. When his braces were removed he wore a clear plastic retainer. He noticed that when he did not wear the retainer for several days his teeth would move. However, putting the retainer back on helped bring his teeth to their desired, straightened state. It was this observation that a clear plastic device was capable of moving his own teeth that led to Chishti to conceive a process that became the Invisalign System.

Out-of-the-Box Thinking:

A background in computer science gave Chishti the insight that it was possible to design and manufacture an entire series of clear orthodontic devices similar to the retainer he wore, using 3- D computer graphics technology to straighten teeth. He and his co-founder Kelsey Wirth started Align Technology in 1997 to realize this vision. The process has now evolved to make extensive use of 3D printing for creating a series of braces to apply gentle pressure to straighten teeth over several months. In 2012 alone, the company printed 17 million transparent dental braces for patients.

Afiniti Target:

Afiniti has deployed over 150 programs for some of the world’s largest businesses, according to the company website. The company says "we work with some of the biggest global brands across a wide range of sectors, including Airlines, Financial Services, Hospitality, Insurance, Politics, Retail, Satellite TV, Social Media, Telecommunications, and Utilities".

Big Names Board:

The company's board of directors includes heavyweights such as former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, former US Treasury Secretary John Snow, Shine Group’s founder and former Chairman Elisabeth Murdoch and Ivan Seidenberg, the former chief executive officer of Verizon Communications Inc.

Summary:

Zia Chishti is a serial entrepreneur of Pakistani origin. Prior to Afiniti, he founded or cofounded Align Technology, OrthoClear and The Resource Group (TRG). Afiniti, Zia's latest venture, has filed for IPO to raise additional funds at $1.6 billion valuation.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Pakistani Brothers Spawned $20 Billion Security Software Industry

Pakistani-American Ashar Aziz's Fireeye Goes Public

Pakistani-American Pioneered 3D Technology in Orthodontics

Pakistani-Americans Enabling 2nd Machine Revolution

Pakistani-American Shahid Khan Richest South Asian in America

Two Pakistani-American Silicon Valley Techs Among Top 5 VC Deals

Pakistani-American's Game-Changing Vision

Minorities Are Majority in Silicon Valley


http://www.riazhaq.com/2017/04/pakistani-americans-tech-unicorn-files.html

 

[Devil Soul]

Sales AI company Afiniti valued at $1.6 billion, files for IPO
MATT MARSHALL APRIL 14, 2017 7:00 AM

Image Credit: Afiniti
[Updated]

You’ll be forgiven for not having heard of Afiniti, a Washington, D.C. company that may be the first pure-play artificial intelligence company to file for an IPO since the big AI hype wave hit last year.

Afiniti uses AI to help companies more efficiently pair their sales people with customers, and boasts that it raises sales by an average of 4 to 6 percent.

Since Afiniti started 11 years ago it has lain low, preferring to amass customers quietly rather than banging the PR drum.

About to go public
But now Afiniti’s about come under a spotlight. The company confidentially filed for an IPO late last year, VentureBeat has learned, and is valued at $1.6 billion after a fourth round of funding of $80 million that closed last week. It could go public as early as this fall, though that could change, sources close to the situation said.

In January, Bloomberg first reported that the company was considering going public.

We interviewed Afiniti’s founder and CEO, Zia Chishti, to learn more about the company. A January feature in the WSJ was the first and only in-depth look at the company we could find.

Chishti said he couldn’t comment about the company’s financials, citing SEC guidelines around IPOs. (Our sources said Afiniti will not be profitable this year, but expects to be in its fiscal 2018 year, which begins in June. Separately, Afiniti’s revenues are growing at a 100 percent run rate, the sources said.)

Pedigreed company
Chishti is already an accomplished entrepreneur, and he’s assembled all-stars on his board — directors and advisors who should impress Wall Street. Chishti previously cofounded and was founding CEO of Align Technology, a teeth-straightening device company now valued at almost $10 billion.

On the company’s board, Chishti has gathered names like Ivan Seidenfeld, former chairman and CEO of Verizon; John Snow, former U.S. Treasury secretary; and José Maria Aznar, former Prime Minster of Spain.

Investors in the latest round include GAM; McKinsey & Co; the Resource Group; G3 investments (run by Richard Gephardt); Elisabeth Murdoch; Sylvain Héfès; John Browne, former CEO of BP; Ivan Seidenfeld; and Larry Babbio, a former president of Verizon. The company has now raised more than $100 million, including the money previously raised, according to our sources.

Initially, Afiniti focused on serving large telecom and insurance companies that have sizable call centers, but then expanded to serve medical organizations and banks, Chishti said. Most recently, the company is targeting retail, where Afiniti says it can help match customers walking into a store with the most compatible sales person.

Overall, the company says customers using Afiniti for revenue generation see an average 4 to 6 percent revenue lift, and Chishti says he expects the long-term average will be about 4.5 percent.

How it works


When a customer calls into a call center, Afiniti matches their phone number — either landline or cellphone — with any information tied to it from up to 100 databases. These databases carry purchase history, income, and other demographic information. They include credit firm Experian, data companies Acxiom, Targus, and Allant, social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, and even census archives for info about the area the person is calling from. Afiniti then routes the call directly to an agent who has been determined, based on their own history, to be most effective in closing deals with customers who have similar characteristics.

Above: Afiniti’s artificial intelligence systems

Image Credit: Afiniti
Chishti is reluctant to provide actual cases of how the pairings happen, saying so many variables are at play that it’s hard to distill it to clear-cut examples. But, to simplify, a particular agent based in the Midwest might show particularly good results on calls with high-income moms from the same region, and so Afiniti would make the match.

The software continuously learns from a applying what is “basically a three-dimensional regression” on data about agents and customers, Chishti said.

For its service, Afiniti charges a fee that’s competitive with a customer’s alternative cost of acquisition. So, for example, a large telecom company might pay an average of $100 to $200 to acquire customers from other sources, say through ads on Google or door-to-door sales or direct mailing. In that case, Afiniti might charge an acquisition fee at the bottom of that range. Afiniti can also prove its service is effective by using a continuous on-off method: It runs its service for a period of time, say 15 minutes, and then shuts it off for five minutes, constantly comparing the number of sales its pairings are generating to the number made while Afiniti is off.

On its website, the company lists dozens of customers. Afiniti has already won every major North American telecom company, with one or two exceptions, our sources said.

In one example, Afiniti says it helped telecom giant T-Mobile generate $70 million in extra revenue in a year by optimizing 50 million annual calls. It did so by increasing telesales revenue by 5 percent, increasing retention by 5 percent, and reducing tech handle time by 2 percent.

When asked if there are any competitive companies that might serve as public or private comparables, Chishti says he can think of no one doing anything similar to what Afiniti is doing in AI. “We are somewhat unique in that we’re the only company that can precisely measure that impact [of AI],” he said.

Other companies say they use AI, but it’s often impossible to differentiate the impact of their AI technologies from other strategies the company is using to grow sales.

There are several other companies, like Pegasystems, that are also using AI and seeing fast growth, Chishti said. However, Pegasystems, like several other players, is more focused on informational retrieval technologies, optimizing how companies engage with and respond to customers.

[VentureBeat will take a closer look at these technologies at our MobileBeat event in July in SF, which is focused specifically on how AI and other personalization technologies are disrupting the larger marketing ecosystem.]

Of Afiniti’s 700 employees, 500 are engineers, said Chishti. Of those engineers, two-thirds work on client interfacing. The other third are AI engineers, split between business analytics and machine learning.

Of course, the company’s move into retail has big privacy implications. Afiniti wants to observe people at a store’s point of sale so that it can recognize them again when they come back. The company would use facial recognition technology, and the information would be tied with the person’s past shopping behavior and other data the system has tied to them. When the person enters the store, Afiniti would again pair them with the salesperson deemed a best fit to conclude a sale.

There are no laws prohibiting such technology, though for obvious reasons retail organizations may be shy to implement it. So far, Afiniti says no retailer is using the technology.

https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/14/sales-ai-company-afiniti-raises-1-6-billion-files-for-ipo/

 

[Devil Soul]

This company founded by a Pakistani is valued at $1.6 billion
By News Desk
Published: April 16, 2017
17SHARES
SHARE TWEET EMAIL

Afiniti uses AI to help companies become efficient by predicting interpersonal behaviour. PHOTO: AFINITI

Afiniti, an artificial intelligence company, is based in Washington DC, but is rooted in Pakistan through its founder and CEO Zia Chisti.

Founded in 2006, Afiniti uses AI to help companies become efficient. They pair customers with employees by predicting interpersonal behaviour. The company recently came into the spotlight after it filed for an IPO. Previously, it lay low; instead of PR, it amassed customers.

This Pakistani startup is revolutionising the way people travel




According to VentureBeat, Afiniti is valued at $1.6 billion. When VentureBeat spoke to Chisti, he said he couldn’t comment on the company’s financials. According to sources, Afiniti will start making a profit in fiscal year-2018 and its revenues are said to be growing at a 100 per cent rate.

Chisti is an accomplished entrepreneur. He was previously co-founder and CEO of Align Technology, a company which is currently valued at almost $10 billion.

Afiniti’s board features veterans in the field. Chishti has gathered names like former Verizon chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenfeld, former US Treasury secretary John Snow, and fomer Spanish prime minister José Maria Aznar. The company has also raised more than $100 million in funding.

Afiniti claims companies that use their technology for revenue generation see an average revenue lift of four to six per cent. Afiniti’s confidence in their claims can be seen from the fact that they operate on margins – instead of paying a fixed fee, clients pay a percentage of additional revenue they make through Afiniti.

According to Afiniti’s website, T-Mobile has earned an additional $70 million in funding by using Afiniti’s pairing technology.

To make its pairings, Afiniti uses information from up to 100 databases. These databases include information such as income, demography and informational from social networks. So, when a customer calls into a call centre, their phone number is run through these databases. The call is then transferred to an agent who is determined to be most effective to handle calls from the customer with those characteristics.

“It’s a little overwhelming, sometimes scary, to know how much information can be accumulated about you,” said Larry Babbio, an Afiniti board member while speaking to The Wall Street Journal. But, he added, the trade-off is a better consumer experience.

How this Pakistani built a billion-dollar startup

In the near future, Afiniti wants to use its technology in the retail world. Chishti hopes the AI systems he is developing will help create jobs and not destroy them. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal he said: “We are one of the examples of AI tending to increase the efficiency of humans, and therefore increase the demand for human capital.”

This article originally appeared on VentureBeat

 

[RiazHaq]

#HongKong #fintech firm to move #research & #development work to #Pakistan

https://tribune.com.pk/story/1384831/hong-kong-firm-move-rd-department-pakistan/

LAHORE: Octo3, a Hong Kong-based financial technology company, has announced to move its entire Research and Development (R&D) wing to Pakistan.

The company, which specialises in development and provision of modern payment and other transactional solutions, further announced that it will invest in the Pakistani market in order to transform its ICT landscape.

The announcements were made based on the robust developments in Pakistan’s Information Technology sector and a rising need of digital payment solutions due to the growing e-commerce segment in the country.
“We have decided to shift our entire R&D department and other core function to Pakistan from Hong Kong as the country offers a lot of talent in the IT sector,” said Group’s Chief Executive Officer Tyrone Lynch.

“Few years ago, we outsourced our R&D wing to India, but after working a while we realised that things didn’t work as per our expectation, and we once again moved back to Hong Kong.

“After analysing the Pakistani market and the rapid developments and upcoming scope of ICT and digital payment solutions, on the back of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), we decided to shift our R&D wing to Pakistan,” Lynch added.

The company, which started its operations in 2009, has its presence in Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok and now Pakistan with its clientele expanding in almost entire modern economies.

Since its founding chairman is a Pakistani, it aims to add a lot of value in CPEC-related and other projects by building database centres and other such ICT infrastructure both with government as well as with private and multinational companies.

The management is already in talks with local banks and financial institutions for provision of backend support to locally available payment solutions, which can be accepted globally as well.

“We are a solution provider company but in Pakistan we will work both on ICT as well as digital payment solutions,” said Ajmal Samuel, ,hairman and Co-founder Octo3 Group Holdings Limited while talking with The Express Tribune.

“I have access to foreign players who are willing to invest in emerging economies, however, due to the negative perception of the country they hesitate to visit,” he added.

Talking about payment solutions, Samuel said that existing players offering different wallets have already paved their way and have established the market and “the next step for us is how we can transfer this existing customer base and wallets to e-commerce payment solutions, which can simultaneously be accepted in global markets”.

“The e-commerce growth is so huge in Pakistan that some global players like Amazon have asked us whether our company can provide any digital payment solutions from Pakistan,” he claimed.