(Bloomberg) — Artificial intelligence startup Inflection AI has announced plans to license its technology to Microsoft. The move is part of the company’s shift toward collaborating with enterprise customers and comes after most of its employees left for Microsoft.
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On Tuesday, Bloomberg first reported that Microsoft hired Inflexion’s CEO and co-founder Mustafa Suleiman, chief scientist and co-founder Karen Simonian, and most of the company’s employees. Ta.
Investors in Inflexion, which has raised more than $1.5 billion, will receive a full bailout, said a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The person declined to say when or how investors will be paid. Inflection’s backers include Microsoft, Nvidia Corp., Bill Gates, and co-founder Reid Hoffman.
Hoffman, a venture capitalist and Microsoft board member, will remain at Inflexion as a director and co-founder as the startup plots a new direction. The new CEO will be board member Shaun White, who previously served as chief research and development officer at Mozilla.
“It was a good day for everyone involved in Inflexion,” Hoffman said in a LinkedIn post Tuesday. He added: “This agreement with Microsoft means all of Inflexion’s investors get a good result today, and I look forward to good upside in the future.”
Last year, as investor interest in chatbots increased, Inflexion debuted a bot named Pi. It was positioned as something like a reliable personal assistant, better than its competitors. But after the launch, Suleiman told Bloomberg that Inflexion had not been successful in finding an effective business model.
Going forward, Inflection will maintain its proprietary technology as it moves to an enterprise business model. Inflection said in a blog post Tuesday that he is well-positioned to serve companies including Microsoft. “Our success in training, tuning, and improving the performance of AI models at scale puts us in a unique position as the AI platform of choice for enterprises around the world,” the company said.
People familiar with the matter said existing investors will remain shareholders in Inflexion, preserving the startup’s potential for future upside. Inflexion did not disclose the terms of the deal or how many of its 70 employees will remain.
–With assistance from Rachel Metz and Lisette Chapman.
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