Highlights:

  • ai’s initial product is an open-source framework named AI Actions, available on Robocorp’s GitHub repository.
  • Robocorp states that AI Actions streamlines the process of configuring a Python environment for an AI application.

Sema4.ai, a novel artificial intelligence startup established by a team of notable software executives, has recently declared the acquisition of USD 30.5 million in funding.

Benchmark and Mayfield Fund provided the funding. This investment reportedly occurred just three months following the launch of Sema4.ai.

Sema4.ai, spearheaded by CEO Rob Bearden, formerly held the position of CEO at data management provider Cloudera Inc. Prior to that, he served as CEO of Hortonworks Inc., a distributor of Hadoop. Among Sema4.ai’s co-founders are former Cloudera engineering executives Ram Venkatesh, Suds Menon, and Paul Codding.

The founding team additionally features Antti Karjalainen, who serves as the CEO of Robocorp Inc., a startup specializing in business task automation. Alongside the recent announcement of its USD 30.5 million funding raise, Sema4.ai revealed its acquisition of Robocorp. Prior to this acquisition, Robocorp had secured over USD 25 million in funding from Benchmark, the same investor supporting Sema4.ai, along with other backers.

Robocorp provides the Control Room cloud platform, enabling developers to build automation workflows using the Python programming language. These workflows streamline repetitive tasks like data transfer between applications, ultimately saving time for company employees. In a recent blog post, Robocorp assured customers that its services will continue uninterrupted after the acquisition.

Bearden said, “Our founders each have a proven track record of building significant enterprise software businesses. Our acquisition of Robocorp was borne out of a deep conviction that intelligence without action is incomplete, and action without intelligence is, at best, nonstrategic.”

Sema4.ai is in the process of developing software designed to assist enterprises in automating repetitive manual tasks through the utilization of large language models (LLMs). The company aims to create LLM-powered tools capable of not only retrieving and summarizing information but also executing actions within business applications.

The inaugural product from Sema4.ai is an open-source framework named AI Actions, accessible on Robocorp’s GitHub repository. With AI Actions, developers can craft software modules facilitating interaction between an LLM and external business applications. For instance, an application team could develop a module empowering an LLM to execute queries on a database or conduct web searches using a search engine.

Like Robocorp’s commercial Control Room platform, AI Actions also employs Python as its scripting language for development. Python is favored in machine learning endeavors due to its straightforward syntax, which simplifies typical coding tasks. Moreover, the extensive availability of prebuilt code components in Python eliminates the necessity for developers to construct their applications from the ground up.

As per Robocorp, AI Actions streamlines the process of configuring a Python environment for an AI application, encompassing the essential collection of software modules required to execute Python code. Additionally, the framework incorporates observability features, enabling developers to monitor the performance of their AI software effectively.

AI Actions can be optionally combined with another open-source framework known as LangChain. This tool enables the integration of retrieval augmented generation (RAG) features into an LLM. LangChain also streamlines various associated tasks, including testing the reliability of LLM-powered applications prior to their deployment.