Signal AI Secures $165M Funding to Revolutionize Risk Intelligence

UK tech firm Signal AI raises $165mn from US investor for global expansion

Signal AI, the British tech company chaired by Archie Norman, has raised $165mn in a funding round led by US tech investor Battery Ventures to expand its media monitoring and risk management business globally. The company has struck content licensing deals with most of the world's top media groups, including the Financial Times, and social media companies, giving it access to articles, as well as podcasts and broadcast content. It scans this material to produce reports for its more than 650 clients, including Diageo, Volvo and Uber, who use them to understand what is being written and said about their company, as well as their rivals and the wider sector. The information also enables companies to detect early warning signs of potential problems -- including cyber attacks -- and inform strategic decisions. Signal counts many PR and management consultants as clients, but also offers a service that in effect replaces some of their more labour intensive operations in media monitoring and risk analysis. London-based Signal plans to use the new funds for acquisitions and product development, as well as expanding across both the US and Europe. Battery will hold a majority stake in Signal after the investment. David Benigson, Signal founder and chief executive, said that as well as having access to "pretty much all the global tier-one content around the world", Signal also scours industry specific publications and local content across 200 markets and nearly 100 languages. The company uses discriminative AI -- models that classify information -- and then applies generative AI to produce analysis for clients. Signal also examines dozens of social media channels and "a number of fringe and alt media sites that have become increasingly influential", Benigson said, including Telegram and Discord. He added that tracking these channels -- which are "not necessarily where our corporate clients are listening and spending their time" -- can help companies identify emerging cyber threats, as well as disinformation and misinformation campaigns. The UK government uses Signal's platform to benchmark reputational risk across agencies and programmes, while accounting firms have used the company's analysis in their audits of companies. In the year to March 2024, Signal made £23mn in revenue, up from £19mn in 2023, and a pre-tax loss of £14mn, narrower than £21mn the year before. Benigson said Signal was now profitable at the pre-tax level. Before this funding round, Signal had raised about $100mn in total from investors including Aberdeen, Hearst and Guardian Media Group Ventures, which is now known as Mercuri. The company was advised by Evercore on its latest fundraise.

Signal AI lands $165M to redefine risk and reputation intelligence - SiliconANGLE

Signal AI lands $165M to redefine risk and reputation intelligence London-based artificial intelligence startup Signal Media Ltd., better known as Signal AI, today announced it raised $165 million in new growth-equity funding led by Battery Ventures. Following this investment, Battery Ventures will acquire a majority stake in Signal AI and support the company through its next phase of growth. Existing investors Highland Europe, Mercuri and MMC Ventures retain minority positions. Founded in 2013, the company's platform uses machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence to proactively detect risk and reputation "signals" from external sources. Signal AI ingests data from 226 markets in 75 languages, including news articles, TV news, podcasts, regulatory filings and social media platforms -- from mainstream channels to fringe platforms -- to help organizations stay ahead of change and understand complex relationships between businesses, people and issues. In an interview with SiliconANGLE, Signal AI Chief Executive David Benigson said that the company differentiates itself in the market with access to premium compliant data that others don't have, combined with the precision of its AI models. "Our vision and mission as a business is, as we describe it, to redefine risk and reputation intelligence," said Benigson. "And what we mean by that is, in this increasingly complex and volatile world where the number of risks and issues seems to be growing exponentially, we're trying to help our clients get a window to the outside world." He added that while enterprise technology has long focused on managing internal data and workflows, far less attention has gone toward understanding external risks and reputational threats that can have just as much impact on a business. "A lot of the threats companies are grappling with come from outside of their business, not from within," Benigson said, adding that many companies lack tools for dealing with external risk and reputational threats. The platform enables decision makers to identify emerging risks, benchmark against peers and competitors, and take action before events escalate into reputational or financial damage. Customers include Diageo plc, NetApp Inc., Volvo Car Corp., Bloomberg L.P. and Uber Technologies Inc. The company said it plans to grow its risk intelligence product development and expand its reach across the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The investment follows two successful acquisitions by Signal AI, including corporate reputation management platform Kelp Inc. in 2022 and advanced reputation intelligence monitoring firm Social 360 in 2024. Signal AI's latest product launch, Ask AIQ, allows business leaders and executives to get answers to highly complex business questions based on intelligence gathered and curated by the company's AI engine. It uses retrieval-augmented generation to surface patterns and trends from large volumes of data. Users can ask questions in natural language regarding risk, sentiment and more. Common applications for Ask AIQ include finding answers to complex problems that may impact the company and analyzing customer sentiment. For example, a user could ask, "What are the trends around generative AI and copyright risks?" or "Who had the best sentiment across my competitors in US-based sources?" Ask AIQ returns highly detailed answers in seconds, incorporating rich visualizations supporting its conclusions and data analysis to permit rapid response to potential reputational threats and emerging opportunities. "Signal AI has carved out a differentiated and, we feel, highly defensible market position at the intersection of AI, risk and enterprise software," said Collier Searle, a principal at Battery who is joining Signal AI's board. "We're backing an exceptional team with a bold vision to become the central nervous system for risk-aware organizations." Benigson said the company is developing predictive risk intelligence, using its blend of discriminative and generative AI to connect signals and anticipate threats before they escalate. He added that he sees it as part of the next stage of building "decision intelligence" tools, where AI agents don't just highlight risks but recommend responses and actions. "I believe, very fundamentally, that this risk intelligence market needs to take shape, that every organization should have a chief risk officer and that every chief risk officer should have a tool like Signal AI in their hands to get ahead of external risks and threats in a more predictive and preemptive way," said Benigson.

UK risk intelligence platform Signal AI raises $165m to expand globally

The investment will give Battery Ventures a majority stake in the company. UK-based risk intelligence platform Signal AI has raised $165m in a funding round led by US tech investor Battery Ventures. The investment, which gives Battery a majority stake in the company, will allow Signal AI to grow its data collection through mergers and acquisitions, and develop sector expertise and AI research capabilities. The company also plans to accelerate its risk intelligence product development, and expand its footprint across the US, and the Europe, Middle East and African regions. In 2021, Signal raised $50m. Founded in 2013 by CEO David Benigson, and chaired by Archie Norman (who also chairs Marks and Spencer's board), Signal AI uses artificial intelligence to identify corporate risks. ranging from regulatory to cyber to supply chain, in unstructured and proprietary data. It does so by sourcing and analysing billions of data points across news, regulation, social media and litigation, among others. With this information, Signal AI's clientele, which includes brands such as Diageo, NetApp, Volvo, Bloomberg and Uber, can benchmark their risk and reputation against competitors and mitigate any potential impact to stakeholder trust and enterprise value. "Our AI platform started in a garage and evolved to power the world's most complex enterprises," said Benigson. "Partnering with Battery Ventures - a firm with a 40-year track record of innovation - will accelerate our global growth. "With technological, operational and financial challenges emerging faster, every executive I meet is asking the same question: 'What's next, and how can I get ahead of it?' Together with Battery, we aim to equip leaders with the deepest, most intuitive way to answer that question." Collier Searle, a principal at Battery, is joining Signal AI's board. She said, "Signal AI has carved out a differentiated and, we feel, highly defensible market position at the intersection of AI, risk and enterprise software." Battery private equity partner Dave Tabors, who is also joining Signal's board, added, "Signal AI's customer traction is extremely impressive and indicates, to us, that the company has hit upon a real pain point in terms of risk management for enterprises today - and that the company is delivering a much-needed, AI-powered solution." Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Signal AI Raises $165 Million to Fuel Global Growth | PYMNTS.com

By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. The new funding round, led by tech investor Battery Ventures and announced Wednesday (Sept. 23), will help U.K.-based Signal make acquisitions that help it deepen data collection, sector expertise and artificial intelligence research. In addition, the company aims to accelerate its risk intelligence product development, while expanding its footprint in the U.S. and Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "Our AI platform started in a garage, and evolved to power the world's most complex enterprises," said Signal AI founder and CEO David Benigson. "Partnering with Battery Ventures - a firm with a 40-year track record of innovation - will accelerate our global growth." "With technological, operational and financial challenges emerging faster, every executive I meet is asking the same question: 'What's next, and how can I get ahead of it?'" Benigson added. "Together with Battery, we aim to equip leaders with the deepest, most intuitive way to answer that question. In doing so, we can transform how the most sophisticated companies mitigate risk - and harness opportunity." The release outlines some of the ways various industries employ Signal's services, such as a streaming company that "surfaces early warning signals about shifting content regulations in new markets," to make sure all productions and investments are compliant. In another scenario, a retailer identifies possible cyber breaches by scouring social, news and dark web sources, and fixes vulnerabilities before hackers can strike. In other AI news, PYMNTS wrote earlier this week about the breakneck advancement of artificial intelligence that has caused governments to scramble to establish regulations. At the same time industry lobbyists say too much regulation could hinder innovation. "From America's AI Action Plan to the European Union's AI Act, governments are putting together various levels of oversight," that report said. "Also in the United States, a proposed bill before Congress would set up an AI sandbox where companies can test new technologies." The past few days have seen three of the world's biggest tech companies put forth their latest moves on AI and infrastructure. For example, Google announced Monday the expansion of its Frontier Safety Framework to examine how advanced AI models behave in high-risk scenarios, including those in which systems might resist shutdown commands or pursue unintended objectives. "The company is stress-testing models for self-preservation and avoidance behaviors to anticipate potential misuse and reinforce safeguards," the report added.