Since launching Supported Intelligence LLC in 2012, Executive Chairman Patrick Anderson has moved quickly to procure venture-capital financing to advance the development and sales of the company’s innovative decision-support software in the commercial market.
“We finished our Series A round last year, which gave us enough capital to do two incremental releases of our Rapid Recursive software and to develop a few example applications,” Anderson reports. For the A round, the company raised $250,000 from individual investors and an equal amount through Ann Arbor SPARK.
Anderson initially cultivated important contacts within the investment community by meeting informally with private investors attending the 2012 Michigan Growth Capital Symposium. He returned to the MGCS last year to make a formal presentation in front of a panel of angels and VCs. “It was beneficial to meet with investors and answer their questions,” Anderson says. “Some of them have become valuable advisors for us. We also were able to talk to the founders of other presenting companies, who may become future customers.”
In addition to connecting entrepreneurs and investors, the symposium helps to raise Michigan’s visibility and stature in the nationwide venture-investment community, according to Anderson, who is the CEO of Anderson Economic Group in East Lansing. “The state of Michigan is hugely underestimated in terms of its innovation and entrepreneurial activity,” he remarks. “The symposium serves as a shining light that brings investors from around the country to Michigan and gives entrepreneurs in the Midwest the opportunity to showcase what they are doing.”
Supported Intelligence’s first commercial product, the Rapid Recursive Toolbox, is designed to help users address valuation, risk assessment, business management and other factors in areas, such as investment decisions, pricing and product-development practices and health-care decisions. The patent-pending Rapid Recursive methodology has a competitive edge over other analytical software products, according to Anderson. “It takes into account the fact that people can change course in the future, and are more likely to do so when conditions change,” he explains. “Humans are much better at making decisions than the software available to them today. Our Recursive model is a step forward in mimicking the way humans actually think when evaluating a risky investment or other opportunities in life and business.”
Currently, Supported Intelligence’s Rapid Recursive product platform is only available to power users, including skilled managers, academic researchers, scientists and economists with access to powerful mathematical software. However, the company is developing a next-generation platform for use on laptops, mobile devices and tablets by a broader customer base. “One of our goals is to license our product to companies that are already providing low-level analytical services to large clients through existing software,” Anderson says. “The Recursive methodology has terrific potential for being incorporated into some of those software programs.”
Future plans also call for returning to the capital markets later this year to raise a Series B round of $2 million to $3 million, which would be used to ramp up product sales and develop the next round of products. Supported Intelligence is expected to achieve profitability in 2015 or 2016, Anderson says.
To register for this year’s MGCS, visit the website here: http://www.michigangcs.com/register/registration.asp.