QuEST Global Appoints Dr. Claudia Süssmuth Dyckerhoff to the Board of Directors

QuEST Global, a global product engineering and lifecycle services company, announces the appointment of Dr. Claudia Süssmuth Dyckerhoff, Senior Advisor, at McKinsey & Company to the Board of Directors as an independent non-executive director. In this role, Claudia will advise the QuEST leadership across key aspects of the business, from strategy to operational performance, partnerships, and corporate governance. Claudia is also serving as a non-executive director of Ramsay Health Care, an international hospital operator based out of Australia, and she is a member of the Risk Committee. She is also serving as a board member of Hoffmann-La Roche and Clariant and a member of their Corporate Governance & Sustainability committees and Compensation Committee, respectively.

Claudia has more than two decades of healthcare domain expertise, focusing on advising healthcare companies in Europe, the United States, and Asia. She started her career with McKinsey in 1995 in Switzerland and became a Senior Partner in China, leading the Asia Health Services and Systems sector within McKinsey. Claudia, who has been with the company for 21 years, moved into a Senior Advisor role within McKinsey in March 2016 when she started to work on global boards. Beyond that, she is also serving on the boards of two start-ups in Asia's healthcare space.

Ajit Prabhu, Chairman & CEO, QuEST Global, said, "Claudia brings invaluable experience working with organizations in the healthcare sector and an excellent track record of helping them with growth strategies, business development, and identifying valuable growth opportunities. Her deep experience in serving global organizations and understanding of the healthcare market will help us to accelerate our growth plans further and continue to be a trusted thinking partner to our customers."

Commenting on her appointment, Claudia said, "Over the years, QuEST has emerged as a truly global player in the product engineering services industry, helping OEMs and Tier1 suppliers to create the frontier in their respective domains. QuEST has an excellent track record of helping medical device OEMs across the globe solve their product engineering problems, and I am excited to join this fast-growing company. I look forward to helping QuEST Global enhance its growth strategy, gain a competitive edge, and reach new outcomes in the engineering outsourcing market."

About QuEST Global

For more than 20 years, QuEST Global has aimed to be a trusted global product engineering and lifecycle services partner to many of the world's most recognized companies in the Aero Engines, Hi-Tech, Aerospace & Defense, Transportation (Auto and Rail), Power and Industrial, Oil & Gas and Medical Devices industries. With a global presence in 13 countries, 66 global centers, and 11,000+ personnel, QuEST Global believes that it is at the forefront of the convergence of the mechanical, electronics, software, and digital engineering innovations to engineer solutions for a safer, cleaner world. QuEST Global's deep domain knowledge and digital expertise aim to help its clients accelerate product development and innovation cycles, create alternate revenue streams, enhance the consumer experience, and make manufacturing processes and operations more efficient.

The Kalpathi Group Unveils New Ed-Technology Venture - Veranda

The Kalpathi Group, today announced the launch of their new ed-tech venture Veranda Learning Solution, India’s first comprehensive 360-degree online education platform. Veranda comes from the Kalpathi AGS group that has immense experience in education, technology, and top-quality production with proven expertise in the past. Veranda Learning Solution will offer training programs in test preparation for all competitive exams in India and abroad, including IIT JEE, NEET, GRE/TOEFL/IELTS/GMAT, IAS, State PSC, Banking/Staff Selection/RRB, CA/ACS related exams, Medical, K-12, NTSE and Olympiads. Veranda will also offer courses in software development namely databases, languages, development tools, cloud/analytics/big data/AI/ML platform and at an affordable price point. 

Veranda is building a unique online platform that will combine the best of technology, processes, and methodologies to deliver high-quality content seeking to be one of India’s first to offer a comprehensive 360-degree education. Focused on academic outcomes for its students, Veranda adopts a multi-modal delivery system backed by a rigorous and disciplined learning framework.

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Suresh Kalpathi said, “with the launch of Veranda we aim to establish an education company of choice for our customers who need a committed partner to drive their success by offering affordable, best in class and focused online content. Our intent is firmly on being a reliable provider delivering outcomes for all those who opt for our courses”. 

“The Indian online education market, supported by macro-economic changes, improvements in product offerings and changes in business models, is expected to grow to USD 1.96 billion by 2021 and to USD 4.87 billion by 2024. Veranda is ideally placed to play a dominant role in the education industry. Being built with an initial investment of Rs. 50 crores, Veranda plans to expand its portfolio through organic development and acquisitions. We are targeting an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of Rs. 100 crores, in the first full year of our operations and Rs. 1000 crore ARR in 3 years from now. We are working on multiple acquisitions, which we will announce in the coming weeks”. 

Veranda will be focusing on a 360-degree approach to learning process. Subject matter experts will give weekly live lectures to students and clear all their queries. Each student will have a counsellor assigned to them to ensure that the student stays on track of the course and is motivated to complete deadlines on time. 

Veranda will be using adaptive AI for quizzing, where the difficulty of questions will change depending on the student’s performance. This will ensure strengthening of foundation and concept understanding whilst providing abundant practice. 

The curriculum will include video & audio content and presentations of the highest quality for the lectures to be engaging with minimal distractions. The courses will be structured as a mix of video, reading and assessment-based learning to ensure that the concepts are effectively received by students. This will be supported by a continuous follow-up from the Veranda faculty to ensure commitment to course schedule and is backed by an “Always Available” student support system. 

About Kalpathi Group

The Kalpathi Group is a Chennai-based business group that has owned and managed various successful businesses over the past 25 years. The Kalpathi Group’s business interests include, education, software services, property development, finance, and entertainment.

In 1991 Mr. Suresh Kalpathi along with his two brothers Kalpathi S. Aghoram and Kalpathi S. Ganesh set up SSI Ltd as an IT training provider in Chennai. This grew to be one of the world’s largest education networks for vocational training in the private sector. SSI later acquired Aptech and grew into a global provider of education, consultancy & software services SSI went on to become the first Indian IT company to be listed on the London Stock Exchange. 

Kalpathi Group now runs a VC fund called Kalpathi Investments, with investments in multiple sectors including Affordable Housing, HealthCare Services, IT, Agriculture, and Dairy and the AGS brand in the entertainment business that includes production, distribution, and exhibition being now one of the largest production houses in South India and the largest privately owned multiplex chain in Tamil Nadu. The group also owns a renewable energy business under the name of Dindigul Renewable that supplies power to large corporations such as Hyundai Motors.

Indian Organizations with Culture of Innovation Fuelling Business Resilience and Economic Recovery: Microsoft-IDC Study

* 77% of Indian organizations have found innovation to be critical or important to their performance and resilience

* 78% of organizations in India are accelerating the pace of digitalization in response to the crisis

* 64% of respondents say innovation in products and services has become easier in the post-COVID-19 era, as compared to 32.5% prior to the pandemic

* Paisabazaar.com reimagines the loan application and disbursal process during the pandemic with Paisabazaar Stack, leveraging Microsoft Azure and Azure AI

As organizations across the world and India continue to deal with disruptions resulting from the pandemic, 77% of businesses in India consider that innovation is now a ‘must’ for them to respond quickly to market challenges and opportunities, and ensure business resilience, said a recent Microsoft and IDC report. Released today, the India findings of the study ‘Culture of Innovation: Foundation for business resilience and economic recovery in Asia Pacific’ highlighted that a large majority of business decision makers agree that innovation is a necessity to staying resilient in a crisis. The findings were released by Rajiv Sodhi, Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft India and Vasant Rao, Managing Director – India and South Asia, IDC, in the presence of Mukesh Sharma, Chief Technology Officer, Paisabazaar.com and Gaurav Aggarwal, Director and Head of Unsecured Loans, Paisabazaar.com.

The study found that in a short span of six months, organizations in India have increased their ability to innovate by 4% by maturing their Culture of Innovation. The study also showed that close to 78% of India organizations are speeding up digitalization in a variety of ways to adapt to the new reality. This included launching digital products and introducing digital payments to embracing ecommerce and automation. As a result, Indian companies are aiming at increasing their revenue from digital products and services to 50% in the next 3 years from 36% at present. According to the survey, 64% of respondents acknowledged that innovation has become easier in the post-COVID-19 era. Prior to the pandemic, only 32.5% of Indian business found innovation in their products and services easy.

The study introduced the culture of innovation framework, which spans the dimensions of people, process, data, and technology, to assess organizations’ approach to innovation. It surveyed 439 business decision makers and 438 workers in India within a 6-month period, before and since COVID-19. The India study was part of a broader survey among 3,312 business decision makers and 3,495 workers across 15 markets in Asia Pacific region.  Through the research, organizations’ maturity was mapped and as a result, organizations were grouped in four stages – traditionalist (stage 1), novice (stage 2), adaptor (stage 3) and leaders (stage 4). Leaders comprise of organizations that are the most mature in building a culture of innovation[1].

“Innovation is no longer an option, but a necessity. We have seen how the recent crisis has spurred the need for transformation; for organizations to adapt and innovate in order to emerge stronger,” said Rajiv Sodhi, COO, Microsoft India. “We commissioned this research to gain better understanding of the relationship between having a culture of innovation and an organization’s growth. But now, more than achieving growth, we see that having a mature culture of innovation translates to resilience, and strength to withstand economic crises to recover,” he added.

“We see amongst leaders a constant appetite for growth and evolution. During COVID-19, 31% of firms in India said they think their business model will lose competitiveness in five years’ time. This desire and urgency for continuous improvement through agility and adaptation to change will determine the success of businesses in this new normal,” said Vasant Rao, Managing Director – India and South Asia, IDC.

Focus on technology and skilling

When asked about their priorities for the next 12 months ahead, organizations in India (45%) indicated that they will focus on Technology as most essential for business resilience and recovery. According to the report, some best practices will include developing a culture that promotes investing in disruptive technologies and leveraging data to differentiate and enhance products and services.

The other area of focus is People.  In the coming year, 18.5% businesses in India plan to focus on embracing risks and driving innovation through ongoing learning, and the right talent and skills. Supported by technological transformation, organization also need to focus on encouraging new and breakthrough ideas among its employees as well as hiring a diverse workforce.

“Organizations in India understand that they need to improve across all dimensions of culture of innovation, especially technology. It is encouraging to see business leaders recognize this, and plan to focus on technology to drive sustained innovation and realize their digital transformation ambition. Achieving success in digital transformation requires both the adoption of tools and technologies as well as enhancing own people’s capabilities – what we term as tech intensity – a critical component of the culture of innovation. Our goal is to realize an inclusive future where all organizations in India are dynamic and resilient – to recover well and thrive despite the crisis. At Microsoft, we are committed to working with organizations in India to make this happen, together,” said Sodhi.

Showcasing a new technology feature that deploys Microsoft Azure and Azure AI to enable extensive digital solutions for loans & credit cards, Mukesh Sharma, Chief Technology Officer, Paisabazaar.com, said, “Most large lenders and Fintechs were unprepared due to the lack of digital processes and infrastructure. We all had to wake up to a new reality and adapt to it. Everybody was impacted and our focus was to ensure that consumers could have access to the loans they needed, through completely paper less and presence less processes. We recognised the potential of AI and Cognitive Services to make end-to-end digital loan disbursals a reality with our Digital Stack.  As the market leader with partnerships with most large banks and new-age lenders - and a culture of innovation since inception - we are well placed to accelerate this critical shift towards the much-needed digitization of the entire ecosystem.”

Paisabazaar.com, India’s largest digital marketplace for lending products, is driving technology innovation in their offerings. Paisabazaar Stack uses Microsoft Azure AI capabilities to make loan disbursals and credit card issuance completely digital. Under the Digitization Stack, the fintech has built completely digital solutions for KYC verification, income and employment validation, repayment set-up and consent on loan agreement. With this, a large section of customers will now be able to access credit much quicker from the comfort of their homes through a presence-less and contactless process as each erstwhile physical step in the lending process has now been built digitally. The Digital Stack has made it possible to provide unsecured loans within 3-5 hours from an earlier disbursal time of three to seven days. Their ‘Chance of Approval’ feature enables Paisabazaar to provide customized lending solutions to customers using a predictive algorithm model. Paisabazaar.com also provides ‘pre-qualified offers’ from partner banks and NBFCs.

Microsoft is utilizing its platforms and services to enable a culture of innovation among Indian enterprises - across retail, IT/ITeS, and healthcare, among other sectors. This is helping organizations adapt, innovate and reimagine their business in the COVID-19 era.

About Microsoft India:

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Microsoft set up its India operations in 1990. Today, Microsoft entities in India have over 11,000 employees, engaged in sales and marketing, research, development and customer services and support, across 11 Indian cities – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, New Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune. Microsoft offers its global cloud services from local data centers to accelerate digital transformation across Indian start-ups, businesses, and government organizations.

Honeywell, Society for Innovation and Development at IISc Partner to Support Science and Technology Startups with Societal Impact

Honeywell (NYSE: HON) announced today that it has partnered with the Society for Innovation and Development (SID) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) to support deep science startups with societal impact.

Honeywell’s partnership with SID opens up opportunities to support startup ventures working on science and technology projects not related to the company’s core areas of work, but intended to address large, societal problems. Honeywell’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) contribution will also target needs relating to COVID-19, including building a new class of eco-friendly specialty fluorescent dyes and a rapid point-of-care diagnostics test for use in low resource settings.

Dr. Akshay Bellare, President, Honeywell India, said, “As a responsible corporate citizen, we see this partnership as a path to fostering a vibrant startup ecosystem, driving innovation to solve societal challenges, and opening up pathways for job creation and economic stimulation.”

Professor B. Gurumoorthy, Chief Executive, SID, said, “At SID we are well positioned to nurture and grow startups by providing access to the right technology, lab infrastructure, seed funding, mentoring and human capital. We are hopeful that this collaboration with Honeywell, which is a leading technology company, will encourage more corporates to support technology incubation through CSR funding.”

Honeywell funds have been deployed to support six startups to begin with. These include:

* Azooka Labs Private Limited, which recently received the National Startup Awards 2020 in the category of women-led startups. Founded by Dr. Fathima Benazir and Alex Paul, Azooka is developing a new class of safe fluorescent dyes and consumables for genomics research and molecular diagnostics. Azooka has also developed a safer and more stable viral transport medium, and working on a rapid, easy-to-deploy point-of-care diagnostic kit that will be useful for testing COVID-19.

* Siamaf Healthcare Private Limited is developing magnetic nanotechnology for radiation-free and affordable cancer diagnosis and therapy.

* Protein Design Private Limited works on protein biotechnology and has developed a unique yeast expression technology that produces glycoproteins like human-like glycan moieties, which are useful for producing cancer immunotherapeutic treatments. In addition, they have produced viral antigens for diagnostics and vaccination for COVID-19.

* Mimyk Medical Simulations Private Limited is building an augmented reality/virtual reality-based laparoscopy simulation platform to train surgeons.

* HealthSeq Precision Medicine Private Limited is working towards developing solutions in precision medicine to enable targeted therapy, reduce risks, and increase efficiencies in the healthcare system.

* PathShodh Healthcare Private Limited is re-purposing its technology for rapid and accurate COVID-19 diagnostics, while also eliminating the need for PCR machines.

Three of the startups that Honeywell is supporting are led by women entrepreneurs, including Dr. Fathima Benazir, Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Azooka Labs.

Dr. Benazir said, “The National Startup Award for Women-led Enterprise is a big win for women in science. We would like to thank SID for their continuous nurturing and Honeywell for their timely support. We hope our success will encourage the small but dedicated community of scientists and entrepreneurs working on new frontiers of science.”

Honeywell and SID are currently evaluating a new crop of startups to support, with a vision to help create technologies that solve some of the world’s toughest challenges.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor Sees a Positive Momentum in Sales as Well as Customer Orders During Nov 2020

Toyota Kirloskar Motor today announced that the company sold a total of 8508 units in the month of November 2020, thereby clocking a growth of 2.4% when compared to its wholesales in November 2019. For reference, TKM had sold 8312 units in the domestic market in November 2019.

Commenting on the month’s performance, Mr. Naveen Soni, Sr. Vice President, Sales & Service- TKM said, “The company has been witnessing a gradual yet steady recovery owing to factors such as pent up & festive season demand as well as consolidation of the market at the lower end due to increasing preference for personal mobility amongst customers. An array of attractive offers and finance schemes have also helped us maintain our momentum, thereby helping us achieve a growth over wholesales when compared to the corresponding period last year. 

In terms of festive season demand & sales, TKM has fared well registering a 10-13% increase in customer orders & 12% increase in retail sales (sales from dealer to customer) when compared to the festive period in 2019. However, owing to the illegal strike called upon by the members of TKM union, TKM was forced to declare a lockout at the factory which has impacted our production & wholesale numbers (sales from TKM to dealer). Having said that, we have been able to fulfill the market demand with the stock available with us, both at the factory as well as at the dealer’s end, and we are trying our best to ensure that ‘Customer Orders’ are prioritized by channelizing the available resources.

Moreover, we also introduced the new Innova Crysta last month and the new model has received a tremendous response from our customers. Its predecessor, the 1st generation Innova Crysta has sold close to 300,000 units since its launch in 2016 in India. We are very thankful to our customers who have appreciated the Innova Crysta and cannot wait to welcome more new customers into the Toyota family with the all new 2nd generation Innova Crysta”, he concluded.

Burger King India Limited Initial Public Offer from December 2-4, 2020

* Bid/ Offer period to open on Wednesday, December 2, 2020

* Price band fixed at Rs 59 to Rs 60 per equity share of face value of Rs. 10 each

* Bid/ Offer period to remain open from Wednesday, 2nd  December, 2020 to Friday, 4th December 2020

Burger King India Limited (the “Company’), one of the fastest growing international QSR chains in India during the first five years of operations based on number of restaurants. (Source: Technopak), will open the Bid/ Offer period in relation to its initial public offer of equity shares of face value of Rs. 10 each (“Equity Shares” and such initial public offer, the “Offer”) on Wednesday, December 2, 2020. The Bid/ Offer period will close on Friday, December 4, 2020. The price band of the Offer has been fixed at Rs 59 to Rs 60per Equity Share.

The initial public offering comprises of a fresh issue of Equity Shares aggregating up to Rs. 4,500 million* by the company (“Fresh Issue”) and an offer for sale of up to 60,000,000 Equity Shares by QSR Asia Pte. Ltd. (“Promoter Selling Shareholder”) (“Offer for Sale”, and together with the fresh issue, “Offer”).

The company has undertaken a pre-ipo placement by way of a: (i) Rights Issue of 1,32,00,000 equity shares to the Promoter Selling Shareholder for cash at a price of Rs. 44 per equity share aggregating to Rs. 580.80 million pursuant to the resolution of the board dated May 23, 2020; and (ii) Preferential allotment of 15,712,820 Equity Shares to AIL for cash at a price of Rs. 58.50 per equity share aggregating to Rs. 919.20 million, in consultation with the BRLMs, pursuant to the resolution of the board dated November 18, 2020. The size of the fresh issue of up to Rs. 6,000 million has been reduced by Rs. 1,500 million pursuant to the pre-IPO placement, and accordingly, the fresh issue size is up to Rs. 4,500 million.

Bids can be made for a minimum of 250 Equity Shares and in multiples of 250 Equity Shares thereafter.

The Offer is being made in terms of Rule 19(2)(b) of the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Rules, 1957, as amended (“SCRR”) read with Regulation 31 of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2018, as amended (“SEBI ICDR Regulations”). This Offer is being made through the Book Building Process in accordance with Regulation 6(2) of the SEBI ICDR Regulations wherein not less than 75% of the Offer shall be available for allocation on a proportionate basis to Qualified Institutional Buyers (“QIBs”) (“QIB Portion”), provided that the Company and the Promoter Selling Shareholder in consultation with the BRLMs may allocate up to 60% of the QIB Portion to Anchor Investors on a discretionary basis. One-third of the Anchor Investor Portion shall be reserved for domestic Mutual Funds, subject to valid Bids being received from the domestic Mutual Funds at or above the Anchor Investor Allocation Price. 5% of the QIB Portion (excluding the Anchor Investor Portion) shall be available for allocation on a proportionate basis to Mutual Funds only, and the remainder of the QIB Portion shall be available for allocation on a proportionate basis to all QIB Bidders (other than Anchor Investors), including Mutual Funds, subject to valid Bids being received at or above the Offer Price. If at least 75% of the Offer cannot be Allotted to QIBs, the Bid Amounts received by the Company shall be refunded.

Further, not more than 15% of the Offer shall be available for allocation on a proportionate basis to Non-Institutional Bidders and not more than 10% of the Offer shall be available for allocation to Retail Individual Bidders in accordance with the SEBI ICDR Regulations, subject to valid Bids being received from them at or above the Offer Price. All Bidders, other than Anchor Investors, are mandatorily required to participate in the Offer through the Application Supported by Blocked Amount (“ASBA”) process by providing details of their respective bank accounts (including UPI ID in case of RIBs, if applicable) which will be blocked by the Self Certified Syndicate Banks (“SCSBs”) to the extent of the respective Bid Amounts. Anchor Investors are not permitted to participate in the Anchor Investor Portion through the ASBA Process.

The Net Proceeds from the Fresh Issue are proposed to be utilised for funding roll out of new Company-owned Burger King Restaurants by way of: (i) Repayment or prepayment of outstanding borrowings of the Company obtained for setting up of new Company-owned Burger King Restaurants; and (ii) Capital expenditure incurred for setting up of new Company-owned Burger King Restaurants, and for general corporate purposes.

The Equity Shares offered in this Offer are proposed to be listed at both BSE Limited (“BSE”) and the National Stock Exchange of India Limited (“NSE”, together with BSE, the “Stock Exchanges”) post the listing. For the purpose of the Offer, BSE is the Designated Stock Exchange.

Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Limited, CLSA India Private Limited, Edelweiss Financial Services Limited and JM Financial Limited are the Book Running Lead Managers to the Offer.

All capitalized terms used herein and not specifically defined shall have the same meaning as ascribed to them in the Red Herring Prospectus dated November 25, 2020 (“RHP”).

ServiceNow to Acquire AI Pioneer Element AI in Canada

* Element AI Co-founder, Dr. Yoshua Bengio, winner of the 2018 Turing Award, will serve as a technical advisor for ServiceNow

ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) today announced it has signed an agreement to acquire Element AI, a leading artificial intelligence (AI) company with deep AI capabilities and some of the world’s brightest AI minds. Element AI will significantly enhance ServiceNow’s commitment to build the world’s most intelligent workflow platform, enabling employees to work smarter and faster, streamline business decisions, and unlock new levels of productivity.

A pioneer in the AI industry, Element AI has world-class scientists and practitioners who will bring expertise in applying modern AI to text and language, chat, images, search, question response, and summarization and will accelerate AI innovation natively in the Now Platform. Element AI Co-founder and Lead Fellow, Dr. Yoshua Bengio, a winner of the 2018 ACM A.M. Turing Award for his pioneering contributions to modern AI, will serve as a technical advisor for ServiceNow.

With the acquisition of Element AI, ServiceNow will create an AI Innovation Hub in Canada to accelerate customer-focused AI innovation in the Now Platform. The new investment deepens ServiceNow’s commitment to the Canadian market, which has long been a leader in AI research and represents one of the world’s most significant locations for AI talent. ServiceNow’s AI Innovation Hub in Canada follows similar investments by ServiceNow to create technology development centers in Chicago, Hyderabad, Kirkland, Wash., San Diego, and Silicon Valley.

“AI technology is evolving rapidly as companies race to digitally transform 20th century processes and business models,” said ServiceNow Chief AI Officer Vijay Narayanan. “ServiceNow is leading this once-in-a-generation opportunity to make work, work better for people. With Element AI’s powerful capabilities and world class talent, ServiceNow will empower employees and customers to focus on areas where only humans excel – creative thinking, customer interactions, and unpredictable work. That’s a smarter way to workflow.”

ServiceNow has seen strong demand for its AI-powered products such as IT Service Management Pro, Customer Service Management Pro, and HR Service Delivery Pro. With practical, purpose-built AI and analytics capabilities embedded into its Now Platform and workflow products, ServiceNow enables enterprises to surface and summarize relevant information, understand content and conversations, make predictions and recommendations, take optimal actions, and automate repetitive tasks.

“Element AI’s vision has always been to redefine how companies use AI to help people work smarter,” said Element AI Founder and CEO, Jean-Francois Gagné. “ServiceNow is leading the workflow revolution and we are inspired by its purpose to make the world of work, work better for people. ServiceNow is the clear partner for us to apply our talent and technology to the most significant challenges facing the enterprise today.”

The acquisition of Element AI is ServiceNow’s latest strategic investment to accelerate AI innovation in the Now Platform. In March, ServiceNow hired Narayanan and launched Now Intelligence, a set of powerful AI capabilities to help customers scale insight to action. Element AI is ServiceNow’s fourth AI acquisition in 2020, following Loom Systems, Passage AI, and Sweagle.

The Element AI team are leaders in the AI community and have pioneered modern AI over the last decade. Element AI was founded in 2016 by CEO Jean-Francois Gagné, Anne Martel, Nicolas Chapados, Jean-Sebastien Cournoyer, Yoshua Bengio, and Philippe Beaudoin.

ServiceNow expects to complete the acquisition in early 2021.

About ServiceNow

ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) is making the world of work, work better for people. Our cloud-based platform and solutions deliver digital workflows that create great experiences and unlock productivity for employees and the enterprise.