Insider Brief
- Prem Labs successfully closes a $14 million seed funding round to advance open-source AI technologies, attracting notable investors including David Maisel and Alan Lipschitz, with Maisel also joining the advisory board.
- Launches a new development platform in beta, enabling businesses to incorporate generative AI into their products with enhanced performance and privacy, fostering collaborations with industry leaders and academic institutions.
- Aims to democratize AI model generation, offering on-premise deployment for full data control and privacy, with Grand utilizing Prem Labs’ technology for compliance management in the financial sector, showcasing the practical application and impact of their AI solutions.
PRESS RELEASE — Lugano, Switzerland/April 5, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Prem Labs, a leading applied research lab focused on enhancing and advancing open-source AI technologies, has successfully concluded its $14 million seed funding round. The startup aims to democratize the generation of proprietary AI models through its autonomous fine-tuning
development platform, marking a significant milestone in its mission to elevate businesses’ AI strategy without compromising privacy and control.
Among the seed round’s investors include a co-founder of Sequoia Capital China, David Maisel, founder and former chairman of Marvel Studios, and Alan Lipschitz, the founder of Incubeta, and others. David Maisel has come aboard not only as an investor, but as part of Prem Labs’ Advisory Board. According to Prem Labs, Maisel’s involvement demonstrates the company’s commitment to leveraging generative AI for enhancing intellectual properties, backed by a strong network of entrepreneurs and global investors. It also validates AI’s potential to transform the entertainment sector and beyond.
Since launching the open-source Prem App, as an Open-Source Alternative to OpenAI last summer, Prem Labs has closely collaborated with various industry leaders in financial compliance, commerce, and gaming. Recently, it has unveiled a new development platform, currently in beta version, enabling businesses to effortlessly incorporate generative AI into their products and provide enhanced performance, personalization, simplified integration, and complete ownership of the AI models. Under the guidance of leading academic advisor Emanuele Carpanzano, Prem Labs also collaborates on AI research with various universities, including the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI) and Università della Svizzera italiana (USI).
Prem Labs provides clients with the resources to train and fine-tune their own state-of-the-art generative AI models, using data that the client is authorized to use. It also offers on-premise deployment, giving clients full ownership and control of the AI model and their data with full sovereignty and privacy.
Over the past few years, data privacy issues have emerged with regard to AI, particularly large language models, and that is something Prem Labs seeks to address.
One of Prem Labs’ key customers is Grand, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Advisense, which is one of the leading Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) specialists in Europe. Boasting a team of over 450 specialized experts, it serves as a trusted advisor to almost 700 financial institutions. Prem Labs developed Prem 1B Small Language Models (SLMs), a model trained from scratch for efficiency and fine-tuning. “The integration of the Prem Platform has revolutionized our compliance management with its fine-tuning capability, enabling precise customization of AI models for the financial sector and enhancing our AI GRC software’s efficiency and compliance precision for our clients,” says Nicolas Espinoza, PhD, CEO of Grand, a leading KYC & AML EU-based provider.
Prem Labs’ team is a dynamic mix of diverse individuals, with wide-ranging talents and deep technological expertise across various aspects of technology and artificial intelligence research, all united by a shared passion to challenge the status quo.
“Prem Labs envisions a future where every individual, company, and country has access to powerful, private, and personalized AI models,” says Simone Giacomelli, CEO of Prem Labs. Simone previously co-founded SingularityNET, the world’s first decentralized AI Network, which is currently valued at over $1bn. His focus is now firmly on Prem Labs. “With this seed funding, we are one step closer to realizing a world of AI sovereignty, where the full potential of AI is unlocked for the benefit of all. We are excited to expand our operations and deepen our relationships with our clients, investors, and research partners, leading towards a future where everyone can access and own powerful, private, and personalized AI models.”
Media contact:
Name: Andrej Gamser
Email: [email protected]
Featured image: Prem Labs logo
