London based no-code advanced analytics platform, Actable AI, has, today announced, that it has secured US$1.2 million in pre-seed funding to make data analytics more accessible for 1 billion spreadsheet users globally. The round was led by a London-based venture capital firm, Begin Capital and included participation from Charlotte Street Capital, Malta Enterprise, and a number of angel investors from the UK, the US and Singapore. 

Actable AI enables spreadsheet users to analyse their data with advanced AI-based analytics, directly in Google Sheets and Excel, without any programming or advanced knowledge of machine learning or statistics. The funding will enable Actable to launch its solution and further expand its user base. The company plans to release its Google Sheets Add-on, Excel Plugin and several other plugins this year. 

Recognising that the current analytics tools are either too expensive, complicated or limited, Actable AI aims to democratise a wide range of analytics tasks, making it accessible to everyone, everywhere, and not just the data specialists.

With only 5+ million data scientists globally, versus 1 billion spreadsheet users, the resulting log jam of requests for analytics or suboptimal results is causing a rise in organisational disruption. Currently, these 1 billion users either have to rely on their data science colleagues or use basic tools not made for advanced analytics. In fact, despite the recent advances in AI and Data Science, around 80% of these business users still rely on simple tools such as spreadsheets for their day-to-day data analytics, based on a recent Actable AI survey of 1,000+ professionals. 

Actable AI technology allows users to analyse their data with eight different AI-based analytics: causal inference, regression, classification, time series forecasting, sentiment analysis, segmentation, data cleaning, and correlation analysis. The company has also introduced a stand-alone web app that can handle datasets that are too large for spreadsheets. Actable AI’s vision is to make their no-code advanced analytics engine easily integratable with third-party tools, making it as seamless as possible for non-technical users to use AI and advanced analytics. 

There is a large number of use cases that can be done in spreadsheets and Actable AI expects this to rise further, as 70% of organisations will shift their focus from big to small and wide data by 2025, according to Gartner.

Commenting on the funding announcement, Dr Armen Poghosyan, CEO and Co-Founder of Actable, said “We are really excited about this funding as it will allow us to continue to grow and bring advanced analytics to companies all around the world. It will also help us to democratise the data science market, making it easier for SMEs and business professionals to use their data to tackle real-world issues. These can range from understanding how the shift to a new flexible work impacts purchasing behaviour, to estimating effectiveness of an online advertising in increasing sales, and many other real life issues facing businesses and society today.

“People tend to think of spreadsheets as simple tools, not suitable for advanced analytics tasks. We want to change this misperception and show people that they can actually continue using spreadsheets to do serious analytics projects, in the same way as a data scientist equipped with python can.”

Speaking about the investment in Actable, Alex Menn, a Partner at Begin Capital, added “The computing power and learning ability of software may fundamentally disrupt the role of experts. Various software applications will enable an average worker to replicate the skills of a professional. Actable AI is standing at the intersection of two beloved VC trends: the rise of new professions and AI no-code solutions. Armen and Trung created a must-have solution for all business analysts. The Begin Capital team is happy to support the founders at the beginning of their journey, and we are very excited about the business potential.”