An Iranian based in Ireland has offered groundbreaking insight into innovative solutions for data retention and analysis.
Parsa Ghaffari, founder and CEO of AYLIEN, has used artificial intelligence to create a data analytics solution that can be used to make sense of the exponentially expanding volume of information and data on the web.
Launched in 2014, the company's text analysis product has been devised to summarize massive quantities of data, to classify, extract names or subjects, and even to determine whether the content is positive or negative, Irish Examiner reported.
“It can analyze and process millions of pieces of text in milliseconds, allowing companies to extract meaning and insights which can be used in a variety of ways,” he said.
Targeting the content analytics market now worth $10 billion (€8.95 million) and set to grow to $15 billion in 2019, AYLIEN is one of a small number of companies specializing in this field in Europe, and the only one in Ireland.
The demand for this type of solution is being driven by the growing volume of Internet data—now thought to have reached 4.8 billion pages.
“It is estimated that the volume of new content being added every 24 hours could not be read in a human lifetime,’’ observes Ghaffari.
Selling mainly to news organizations and publishers in the US and Canada, AYLIEN aims to establish itself as a major player in the content analytics space.
Its name is a humorous reference to associations between artificial intelligence and aliens.
Currently employing a staff of 12, the company is making plans to fundraise with a view to opening a sales office in the US.
Ghaffari originally set his company up in Iran in 2011 but moved it to China to participate in an accelerator program backed by the Cork-based company SOS Ventures.
Identifying a need to relocate to Europe or the US, Ghaffari was attracted to Ireland by the Enterprise Ireland-backed Startup Entrepreneur Visa Program for foreign entrepreneurs.
In October 2012, AYLIEN set up in Dublin with a staff of three.
By the time the product was launched in 2014, the staff size had doubled.
“We began by selling to companies mostly in the news space such as news reader applications and publishers,” he says, explaining that it first offers free trials and subsequently charges monthly subscription fees.
By the end of 2015, AYLIEN surpassed 10,000 subscribers on its platform.
A major milestone was a partnership with US data analytics company RapidMiner that now offers the AYLIEN solution as a plug-in on its platform.
”This was a major boost and brought in 4,000 new subscribers,” says Ghaffari, who achieved another coup at the start of the year by signing up with Sony as a customer.
Competition in the content analytics space comes mainly from major global organizations such as IBM and SAP.
Ghaffari says AYLIEN can compete effectively because it has a more advanced technology, carries more features and, above all, is more accessible than traditional products in this field.
To date, the company has raised $700,000 with the lion’s share coming from SOS Ventures.
Plans for 2016 include the launch of a new product which, in addition to processing and analyzing data, will also source it.
Apart from selling to news companies and publishers, AYLIEN also sells to brands and PR companies that use the application to find out what influencers and consumers are talking about online.
"Marketing companies also use it to determine which websites and pages are most suitable for ads," said Ghaffari.
The aim for 2016 is to achieve a turnover of over €1.5 million and to grow this to €3 million by 2017.
In the long run, AYLIEN’s goal is to achieve global recognition as the go-to platform for content analytics.
