Sursa foto: Pixabay
A technology start-up in Iasi has been awarded a €400,000 grant from Innovation Norway, attracted €80,000 in a first round of investment and is preparing a second round worth up to €250,000.
Sourcetask Solutions has developed a platform (“SenseTask”) that uses artificial intelligence to automate manual document processing.
The project was started in mid-2019 and the founders are Ciprian Petrini (CEO) and Victor Cristinari (CTO).
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“We aim to solve a big problem: the significant loss of productivity due to manual document processing. Globally, organizations lose more than 20% of productivity due to document-related issues. In Romania, I think this percentage is much higher”, Ciprian Petrini told Economedia.ro.
Before founding the company, he studied and worked in the US, in California, and had start-up experience. One of the reasons he came back, according to his own words, was to develop a software company in Romania.
About SenseTask, Ciprian Petrini says that it is a complex architectural product, but that it has an interactive and intuitive interface, being easy to use and accessible.
“It eliminates many of the manual tasks that still exist in offices, allowing customers to focus on strategic, non-repetitive activities,” said Ciprian Petrini.
A concrete example, which SenseTask is currently focusing on, but not limited to, is the automated processing of invoices, as the platform can extract relevant data from such a document even if the document has only been photographed.
“SenseTask is a cloud-based, scalable platform that uses Artificial Intelligence to extract relevant data from documents (as PDFs, scans or even photos). We started with invoices because we saw a huge need in the market, but our system can learn and process any type of document (forms, questionnaires, contracts, etc). In the invoices segment we also have first customers, where the efficiency of the manual data entry process is up to 80%”, explained Ciprian Petrini.
One of the strengths of the platform, say company officials, is that SenseTask does not use a processing according to a specific invoice template, as the product can process any type of document, regardless of the document “template”.
“SenseTask uses Machine Learning to learn from validations, gradually eliminating repetitive tasks. We don’t use templated processing – as most of our competitors do – our product is independent of an invoice template. Also, being a cloud-based solution, SenseTask is highly scalable and facilitates access to digital copies of documents”, explained Ciprian Petrini.
As for future plans, in the immediate future, the platform will be integrated with several accounting and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) applications in Romania to expand its market potential. Next year, the same facilities will be launched abroad.
“As an innovative project with a lot of R&D, we have received a grant of €400,000 from Innovation Norway, one of the most active organisations in fostering innovation. In addition to this grant, we attracted an investment of €80,000. We will open another round of funding by the end of this year, with the aim of attracting a further €250,000,” said Ciprian Petrini.
The company currently employs 6 people and the funds attracted will be used to accelerate the development of the platform and the growth of the staff.
Edited for English by: Service for Life S.R.L.