AI Start-Up Airts Signs Six-Figure Deal With PwC

Ed Lauder

April 27, 2017

2 Min Read

The Edinburgh-based AI start-up has just secured a six-figure contract with PwC, who's platform helps to manage company employees' workload.

Airts was founded by Andrew Bone and Dr Alastair Andrew in 2013 and was supported by the business accelerator programme Entrepreneurial Spark. They've been steadily growing over the course of five years, yet in 2016, saw a marked increase in their funding when they secured £300,000 of seed investment from Scottish-based investors.

In 2014, the start-up raised £50,000 through the Scottish Edge awards, which aims to promote promising young Scottish businesses. Yet, their latest deal with PwC will easily be their most lucrative.

According to The Scotsman, Airts have agreed a deal with PwC, which will give them access to the accounting firm's service delivery centre in Poland. This will give Airts the means to release its AI software, called Braid, to more clients across the UK and the rest of the world.

Airts' Braid software was developed to ease the strain placed upon employers and staff, by deploying AI to automate their workloads and allocate tasks, which will enable company employees to be more efficient and productive.

“Major professional services firms like PwC constantly have to decide how best to allocate staff to client engagements in a way that balances the competing needs of the customer, the wellbeing of staff and, ultimately, the bottom line. Braid supports companies to overcome this challenge at scale by optimising the schedule as circumstances change,” highlighted Airts' chief executive and co-founder, Andrew Bone.

“We love working with Airts. They took time to deeply understand our business and make the whole project a collaborative experience. It’s exciting to be at the forefront of something that we feel will re-invent industry best practice,” said Bartosz Krajewski, senior manager at PwC in a statement.

Krajewski continued by explaining how managing staff's schedules had become an "unsustainable" task for the company, which explains why the Braid software was so well received by PwC's staff and management. He detailed how it “co-ordinates what should be happening and when, giving us a joined-up view of our workload and resources, which lets us focus on continuous growth and improving our quality of service.”

Airts has plans to move their headquarters from Hill Street to CodeBase, which is a technology incubator located just next to Edinburgh Castle.

Keep up with the ever-evolving AI landscape
Unlock exclusive AI content by subscribing to our newsletter!!

You May Also Like