Google DeepMind
London startup DeepMind, a group of approximately 140 people aiming to "solve intelligence," is arguably one of the most interesting technology companies operating in the UK right now.
Google bought DeepMind last year for a reported £400 million. Today it is using the company's technology across its organisation to make many of its best-known products and services smarter than they previously were. For example, it is starting to use DeepMind's algorithms to power its recommendation engines and improve image recognition on platforms like Google+.
Magic Pony Technology
Magic Pony Technology is pioneering a new approach to video compression by combining machine learning and computer vision research.
The company was founded by Rob Bishop who holds a masters degree in signal processing and Zehan Wang who holds a PhD in visual information processing.
The company recently raised one of the largest seed rounds in Europe, at $2 million (£1.3 million).
Status Today
Status Today claims on its website that it employs a unique approach to security.
The company analyses behavior in the context of humans and their intended actions to protect individuals and the company they work for.
Using machine learning techniques and "organisational human behavior analysis," Status Today claims it can detect any possible malicious behavior, no matter how big or small.
Rainbird
Rainbird is an artificial intelligence platform that aims to make a company's business operations smarter.
The platform allows companies to build systems with human-like decision making abilities.
According to Rainbird's website, the company's technology can be used to create "a powerful ecosystem for re-engineering knowledge work enabling you to automate and augment the work your staff perform".
Tractable
Tractable describes its technology as a fully automated visual recognition platform with artificial intelligence. The company uses deep learning to reclassify large-scale data sets in insurance, health, and many other sectors. Its goal is to match human accuracy in the next six months.
Tractable was founded by Alex Dalyac and Razvan Ranca. Dalyac completed his masters degree in computer science at Imperial College, whilst Ranca was a prize-winning computer science graduate from Cambridge University conducting research in computer vision.
Synap
Synap is a mobile and web app, founded by medical students James Gupta and Omair Vaiyani, that allows students and professionals to prepare for exams by taking quizzes that are developed by other members of the Synap community.
The app — already used by medical students at Oxford and business students at the London School of Economics — uses AI algorithms to tailor lessons and revision schedules for individual students.
Onfido
Onfido's technology allows companies to carry out remote background checks and is used by everyone from upmarket Airbnb rival Onefinestay and on-demand cleaning business Handy, to Germany software giant SAP and recruiter Hays.
Instead of just requesting just a name, date of birth and other easily stolen data, Onfido combines a number of different checks, in addition to using artificial intelligence and machine learning to build the sophistication of its fraud detection over time.
The London-based startup was set up by three Oxford graduates, and it also poached a Google executive to be Onfido's new chief commercial officer.
Weave.Ai
Weave.ai is building an alternative to Google Now that can mine tweets for context and bring up relevant data in other apps on your phone.
The company wants to transform the mobile experience using AI, contextual search and deeplinking, learning from users as it goes and offering them information and services from the other apps on a phone.
A private beta will be rolled out "very soon" and weave.ai is inviting people to sign up to be a part of it.
Seldon
Seldon predicts the future actions of consumers of media and e-commerce services across web, mobile and tablet.
The company's platform combines behavioural, social, contextual, and first/third party data to increase the relevance of content and product recommendations and ultimately boost engagement and conversion.
It claims on its website that it uses the industry-leading big data and machine learning technologies to provide useful insights that companies can act on.
Improbable
Improbable is developing an operating system that aims to make building "simulated worlds" possible.
According to Improbable's website, simulated worlds provide insight to "those asking questions of complex systems." As well as enabling new experiences in gaming, simulated worlds can address challenges in areas like defence, energy, city efficiency, health, and finance.
The "virtual worlds" development startup has received $20 million (£13.6 million) from Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm that has backed the likes of Facebook and Twitter.
