Mindtech Global, a leader in synthetic data development for AI vision systems, has secured £4.4M in a funding round led by Edge, with participation from Mercia Ventures and the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund. This investment will support the Sheffield-based company in enhancing its technology, expanding into key markets including Japan, the US, and Europe, and deepening partnerships with industry leaders.

Mindtech’s platform, Chameleon, addresses a crucial challenge for AI developers by generating synthetic images to train computer vision systems. It creates realistic images with diverse backgrounds, objects, and people, ensuring data ownership and privacy law compliance. The platform’s use of synthetic data reduces costs and avoids bias in AI systems, making it particularly valuable for sectors like retail, healthcare, and transportation.

The company’s latest product, Dolphin, enhances this by analyzing existing datasets for issues such as bias and lack of diversity, further improving AI training.

Steve Harris, CEO of Mindtech, explained that the investment will allow the company to accelerate its growth and technology, adding that it comes at a crucial time as synthetic data is expected to dominate AI training by 2025.

Fiona Dent from Edge emphasized that Mindtech’s GDPR-compliant platform addresses the global data scarcity problem, offering AI vision solutions much faster. Ashwin Kumaraswamy of Mercia Ventures noted that Mindtech’s synthetic datasets have the potential to become a key part of AI vision infrastructure. Keira Shepperson from the British Business Bank also expressed pride in supporting a northern business driving innovation and growth in AI and data.

Mindtech was founded by industry veterans, including Sir Hossein Yassaie, and now employs a team of 25, with customers across various industries using its AI-powered solutions.