Kiva AI, a service designed to develop specialized AI applications by employing human experts to label large datasets, has closed a $7 million seed round led by CoinFund, a crypto-focused venture capital firm.
Ahmed Rashad, CEO and founder, sees Kiva AI as a bridge between industries that could benefit from AI software like health care, finance and law, and AI itself. In an interview with Fortune, he made the case that as AI models become larger and push into various complex fields, high-quality and reliable data is now imperative for the technology to produce accurate and efficient results.
“We build foundational models that are highly specialized in areas such as medical, dental, legal, finance…that allow companies to build their AI applications using software and tools and services that are highly specialized for their use case,” Rashad said. “So this allows them to develop their AI applications much faster, much more accurately, with way less iteration and at a much lower cost.”
Kiva AI takes a human-in-the-loop approach, ensuring that a subject matter expert is always making the final call, especially in high-risk situations like medical diagnostics or legal document analysis.
Rashad says that Kiva AI is useful on a global scale, and has recruited experts from the United States, Egypt, Argentina, and Venezuela.
“We are going in and creating opportunities for highly skilled people to be able to earn a very, very good living and be able to lead good lives. While they’re still a doctor, they put in a few hours that supplements their income to the point where they can live gracefully,” Rashad said.
Rashad said he chose to partner with CoinFund because the firm aligned with his core principles and ethos. He also foresees crypto being an effective way to compensate experts in places outside of the United States. “It’s higher value for the expert, and it’s way cheaper for us, which is a win-win,” Rashad said. “We can afford quite easily, actually, even with higher margins, to be able to pay people more.”
With the money raised from CoinFund and other seed investors including Protagonist, HashKey, and Peer VC, Rashad hopes to hire a host of high-capability engineers to build, sell, and deliver his product.
“Our hyper focus is on high-quality human engagements from the beginning. This cannot be done from ivory towers,” Rashad said.