AI software provider Cogna lands $15m from top investors

An AI software company which counts Britain’s largest gas distribution network among its clients will this week announce that it has secured $15m (£11.6m) in new backing from a syndicate of leading venture investors.

Sky News understands that Cogna, which launched last year, has landed the funding from Notion Capital, with backing from Hoxton Ventures - an early shareholder in Darktrace and Deliveroo - and Chalfen Ventures.

Cogna aims to help clients tackle business inefficiencies and improve their productivity by using what it describes as "precision solutions" software to diagnose and address them.

Its clients include companies in the energy, utilities and manufacturing sectors, including Cadent Gas and Telecom Plus.

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The new funding will be used to broaden its customer base to other sectors of the economy, and increase the scope of its automated AI-powered software factory.

Cogna believes it has begun to exploit a vast new market category serving clients adjacent to the enterprise resource planning sector, worth $51bn in revenues, and the IT consultancy market, which generates sales of $362.5bn.

"Traditional industries have been left behind by the digital revolution due to the complexity of their operational challenges," Ben Peters, co-founder and chief executive of Cogna, said.

"Cogna's mission is to empower these sectors with precision software technology that addresses every unique company pain point on its own terms, enabling immediate productivity gains.

"This funding allows us to bring our technology to more industries and help organisations reduce bottlenecks and free their expert teams from arduous manual tasks, unlocking their vast untapped potential."

The company, which is based in London, employs about 40 people.

"As the UK's largest gas distribution network, supplying gas to 11 million customers with 82,000 miles of pipe, having the right digital infrastructure in place is just as important as our physical infrastructure," said. Howard Forster, chief operating officer of Cadent Gas.

"Cogna gives us the ability to create precision software across a huge variety of business functions - from optimising procurement to bolstering our gas escape management system."