Zegami, the augmented intelligence company helping businesses unlock their data potential through visual data exploration, has raised £1.25M in equity funding. Its latest round of fund raising was led by RT Capital Management and the Oxford Technology and Innovations EIS Fund, with existing investors Oxford Sciences Innovation plc and Oxford University Innovation also contributing. The funding will enable Zegami to continue developing its next generation data visualisation platform and raise its profile through marketing and commercial partnerships – in particular with LiveTiles and Microsoft.

Together with previous equity rounds and funding, Zegami is investing £4.0 M into democratising data analysis using machine learning to enable organisations to bring structure to their data, making it immediately comprehensible to the human eye through dynamic interactive visualisation. At the touch of a button, clients can augment and explore their data – documents, PDF, images, audio, maps and video – and see the results displayed visually on a single screen.

Developed at Oxford University, the Zegami platform takes complicated datasets, often only decipherable with complex models and expensive data scientists, and enables a whole organisation’s workforce to be able to engage with data through visual data exploration. The platform allows users to easily filter, tag and sort data by presenting it in an intuitive, engaging way. Zegami’s analysis of organisations that have used its platform reveals that on average they save two hours per worker, per day when using effective visual search and analysis.

Spun out from Oxford University in 2016, Zegami spent its early years developing its proposition. It now has thirty-five clients and has developed several case studies illustrating how its proposition works across all sectors. These case studies include:

• Helping to predict heart disease using images derived from echo cardiogram data
• Visualise a collection of wall art, associated market values and dummy stock values
• The effectiveness of social media. Zegami’s powerful graphing and filtering tools can see what factors affects the reach of social media posts
• To provide a dashboard-based software tool that allows HR professionals to conduct people analytics.

Samuel Conway, Co-Founder and CEO at Zegami, said:

“Over the last few years Zegami has been developing a cutting edge Visual Data Exploration platform to democratise data analytics, enabling people to make sense of the tsunami of data available today. Our focus is now on the commercialisation of the software, working with commercial partners like LiveTiles and Microsoft to take the product to the world. By democratising data, Zegami will enable people to realise the potential of data for their organisation – whether it be commercial, academic or government”.

The global big data and business analytics market was valued at $169bn in 2018, and it is expected to grow to $274bn by 2022.

Adam Workman, Head of Oxford University Innovation Investments and New Ventures, said:

"Zegami has made excellent progress in developing its visual data exploration platform - a technology which has numerous applications across a wide variety of sectors. As the technology matures, we're incredibly excited to see the next stage of evolution at the company."

For further information contact Phil Anderson at Citigate Dewe Rogerson on 0207 025 6494.

About Zegami

Zegami is a Visual Data Exploration platform that enables businesses to recognise patterns quickly, analyse information, and find hidden insights by allowing users to search, sort, filter, group and analyse large collections of images and data simply and intuitively.

Launched out of Oxford University in 2016 by its three founders, Samuel Conway, Roger Noble and Stephen Taylor, Zegami is now working with commercial partners from Livetiles and Microsoft to challenge the way organisations manage visual data. They are currently exploring new ideas and making new discoveries for 35 clients and counting, across an ever-growing variety of sectors.

About Oxford University Innovation

Oxford University Innovation supports innovation activities across all University Divisions, managing technology transfer and consulting activities, and creating a world-leading innovation ecosystem, with Oxford University at its heart.

We provide access to technology from Oxford researchers through intellectual property licensing, spinout company formation and material sales, and to academic expertise through our Consulting Services team. The New Venture Support & Funding team supports investors or donors with an interest in early-stage ventures, and manages the Oxford Angels Network.

Our start-up Incubator supports members and ex-members of the University who wish to start or grow entrepreneur-driven ventures that are not University spinouts.

Oxford University Innovation is the highest university patent filer in the UK and is ranked 1st in the UK for university spinouts, having created over 170 new companies since 1988. In the 2016/17 financial year we completed more than 50 licenses and consulting agreements every month. For updates on innovations from Oxford, follow Oxford University Innovation on LinkedIn and Twitter or subscribe at http://innovation.ox.ac.uk/about/contact-us/#enquiry