IntelliAM, a new Artificial Intelligence platform to help global food and beverage companies cut downtime and boost productivity, has completed an initial fundraise with VC funding and tech support from Yorkshire AI Labs.
The company is led by CEO Tom Clayton, founder of leading UK maintenance engineering and asset management specialist 53North, and chairman David Richards MBE, the UK-US technology entrepreneur and managing partner of Yorkshire AI Labs.
Professor Keith Ridgway CBE, founder of the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre at the University of Sheffield, is board member and parliamentary advisor.
IntelliAM aims to revolutionise the way that people interact with machinery and make decisions in industry and brings together domain knowledge experts from the fields of data science, technology, engineering and manufacturing.
The company has a strong pipeline of opportunities based on long-term relationships with blue chip customers and leading suppliers via 53North.
Founded in 2013, 53North serves half of the world’s top 12 food and beverage groups with major customers including ADM, Mars, Müller and Weetabix.
The AI platform harnesses data to provide insights and instruction to deliver measurable improvements in asset management through performance, availability, quality, efficiency and safety.
It offers manufacturers a new way of operating with insights into machine health, equipment effectiveness, raw materials, supply chains, energy consumption and carbon emissions.
Inefficient maintenance and production leads to massive costs for manufacturers: it is estimated that unplanned downtime now costs Fortune Global 500 companies 11 per cent of their annual turnover – equivalent to nearly $1.5 trillion according to Siemens’ 2022 The True Cost of Downtime report.
CEO Clayton, chief executive of IntelliAM, said: “Food and beverage companies are under huge pressure to increase production using existing assets to meet demand while reducing energy consumption.
“We are excited to have partnered with Yorkshire AI Labs to help bring IntelliAM to market and tackle these difficult challenges.”
Chair Richards added: “IntelliAM is a ground-breaking company that is using the practical application of Artificial Intelligence to boost manufacturing productivity by huge percentage points and in a sustainable way.
“We are thrilled to be backing Tom and his talented team and look forward to helping them achieve their significant growth potential.”
