Faculty

Faculty, an artificial intelligence firm founded in 2014, has established itself as a notable player in the AI sector by focusing on the application of its technology to create tangible real-world value. The company was brought to life by Dr. Marc Warner, Dr. Angie Ma, and Andrew Brookes, who leveraged their collective expertise in physics, engineering, and data science to build the business. Their journey began with the Faculty Fellowship, a program designed to transition academics with quantitative PhDs into commercial data science roles, which also served as the initial talent pool for the company's consulting services.

The firm operates on a dual-pronged business model, combining bespoke AI consultancy with the development of a proprietary software platform called Frontier. Initially, Faculty's primary revenue stream was its consulting arm, where it designs and builds custom AI solutions for a diverse client base that includes both public sector organizations, like the UK's Home Office and the National Health Service (NHS), and private enterprises, such as retailers and energy companies. This approach allows them to tackle complex, high-stakes problems by deploying tailored AI applications.

In a strategic evolution of its business, Faculty developed Frontier, an 'AI-as-a-Service' decision intelligence platform. Frontier is engineered to provide organizations with a system for making robust and intelligent operational decisions. The platform integrates a customer's own data and models, enabling them to simulate potential actions and understand their likely outcomes before implementation. This capability is designed to improve decision-making processes across various business functions, from optimizing marketing spend to managing supply chains. By offering Frontier on a subscription basis, Faculty is building a recurring revenue stream to complement its project-based consulting income.

Financially, the company has demonstrated significant growth, underscored by a £30 million Series A funding round led by the Apax Digital Fund in 2021. This capital injection was earmarked for the international expansion and continued development of the Frontier platform. The firm's strategy appears to be focused on productizing its deep consulting experience into a scalable software solution, positioning itself to capture a larger share of the growing market for applied AI. Keywords: artificial intelligence, decision intelligence, data science, AI consulting, machine learning, AI software, public sector AI, operational efficiency, AI platform, predictive analytics