Brainspace has received a vote of confidence from a big advocate of U.S. intelligence market. The Addison-based company solidified a strategic investment from In-Q-Tel Inc., a nonprofit that accelerates the development of technologies for the U.S. intelligence community.
The company, which focuses on artificial intelligence and machine learning, could not release figures on the investment due to a nondisclosure agreement, but Brainspace CEO Dave Copps calls it “significant.” The company has previously received investments including a $5 million and $10 million round led by Miami-based private equity firm Medina Capital.
“It really validates the technology,” said CEO Dave Copps, adding that the association with In-Q-Tel was the most valuable part of the agreement. “The fact that it passed the muster on technology that’s vetted out to be worthy of these agencies is validation.”
With the new investment, Brainspace will work with In-Q-Tel to create custom features for the use of the intelligence community. In-Q-Tel works with a number of U.S. agencies, such as the CIA, and seeks out commercial technology to meet their needs. It has more than 140 companies in its portfolio, including San Francisco unicorn Palantir and global data management company Cloudera. Copps said he likely won’t know the exact use case of the technology, given the sensitivity with the government agencies, but expects it to do what it does best—help clients sift through and analyze massive amounts of information with the help of visualization tools.
Brainspace founded in 2005, focuses on three areas: e-discovery, which serves sectors such as law firms and e-discovery groups like LexisNexis; internal investigations, which helps companies pull together all related materials; and defense intelligence. Though the company initially focused on e-discovery with its Discovery 5 product, it business in internal investigations and defense intelligence has been accelerating at a faster rate.
Overall, the company, which would not release its revenue, has experienced a 175 percent increase in annual reoccurring revenue from last year. It expects to double this year. Brainspace, which employs 62 people, is also planning to open a London office early next year and expand its international presence. About 70 international locations currently have access to the technology. Copps said he expects to grow that number to more than 100 in the next 12 months.
“We’re going to continue to advance our core technology in machine learning,” Copps said. “Our bread and butter is visualizations, connecting people to machine learning.”
