Squirro invests in meetsynthia.ai to bolster AI guardrails
I participated in a webinar recently with the team from Squirro. It featured the company's CEO, Dr Dorian Selz, and was hosted by the company's Chief Product Officer & Head of Corporate Development, David Hannibal.
In the Conversational AI industry, I think it's reasonably fair to assert that it's not often that you find the roles of Chief Product Officer intertwined with Head of Corporate Development. I think it's a business-critical requirement and you can see the outcomes from the path that Squirro is taking in the industry.
A Brief Tangent
Let me take a little tangent here before talking about the Squirro news.
All too often, many vendors that I meet across the Conversational AI industry feel unable to evaluate anything other than 'doing stuff ourselves'. That is, they can essentially only see to the end of their desk. Everything is routinely done in-house. Everything. It is, generally speaking, the only choice. In some cases, you might import technologies - The cloud is a good example, or perhaps leveraging open-source software might be another.
But it's internal only. It's the way. That's the only way. It's the default way, as far as many in the industry are concerned.
This is an exceptionally blinkered reality.
When I speak with many executives, I will often discuss the possibility of 'corporate development' as one of the strategic discussion points. So for example, buying companies, acqui-hiring (buying the talent), or making strategic investments and so on.
Although the executives understand the concept very well, there is no one else internally around to help. They routinely don't have anyone working in corporate development. They often don't have anyone actively looking outside the market. No one scouring the market with an eye for the next step, the next opportunity or a way to combine offerings to make 2+2 equal 20,000.
All too often, startups can have a dramatic impact on the marketplace. They can disrupt the RFP process, causing prospective clients to turn their heads. They can begin to take market share. They can partner with your competitors. So keeping an eye out for what's moving in the market is important.
And then, when something does move – you need to be able to act.
Which is why you need something like a Head of Corporate Development. Or a head of strategy, head of ventures, something like this.
Here's how ChatGPT defines the Head of Development role:
The Head of Corporate Development is a senior executive responsible for overseeing and managing a company’s growth initiatives, typically through mergers, acquisitions, strategic partnerships, investments, and other corporate restructuring activities. This role focuses on identifying, evaluating, and executing opportunities that align with the company's long-term strategic goals, such as expanding market share, entering new markets, or acquiring new technologies.
Combine this with someone who's also looking at the company's internal product offering and things can get rather powerful, very quickly. It can be one role, or it can be two.
Many executives I speak with overlook the benefits of even a minority investment in a complementary supplier. Depending on the negotiation terms, you can access information rights – and you can specify these in your discussions. For example, order book, sales prospects, or the permission to integrate their software into your stack – and so on. In some cases, you can even join the board to help directly shape the direction of the company. You can also consider using 'soft influence' to stay connected with the company's leadership informally – often this can be more valuable than a formal board seat. Finally, staying connected means you can often get first right of refusal (if you haven't already negotiated that) for upcoming investment rounds or full acquisition possibilities.
Back to Squirro
Which, dear reader, brings me to Squirro's announcement today.
They've invested in meetsynthia.ai, a US-based pioneer in AI guardrail management systems, which helps companies ensure that AI outputs are accurate, reliable and in line with enterprise-specific requirements.
Why would Squirro be interested? Well, let's hear from their CEO, Dr Dorian:
“At Squirro, we believe that AI accuracy, reliability and transparency are fundamental for eliminating risk, which is a key consideration when integrating AI into business operations,” said Dorian Selz, CEO of Squirro. “Through our investment in meetsynthia.ai, we will be able to assist their team in driving outcomes for our Squirro enterprise customers and, conversely, extend our capabilities to the company’s employee-first UX user base."
Here's a bit more detail on the thinking:
With Synthia, organizations can effortlessly create, edit, rank and manage guardrail attributes, automatically enhancing prompt quality, precision and alignment with critical standards. Validation guardrails ensure AI responses rigorously adhere to privacy, compliance and brand guidelines. By integrating its capabilities into an accuracy-driven GenAI platform like Squirro, companies can mitigate risks, reduce legal and operational liabilities and safeguard against AI hallucinations.
Here's an example of the kind of thinking in the context of validation guardrails, from meetsynthia.ai's front page:
Let's hear from meetsynthia's CEO, Drew Rayman:
“We are thrilled to have Squirro as an investor and partner," said Drew Rayman, CEO of meetsynthia.ai. "Their passion for accuracy and reliability resonates deeply with our mission to deliver employee-first AI solutions that enhance and expand human capabilities. By combining Squirro's precision-engineered GenAI enterprise platform with our guardrail management system, we are redefining the level of accuracy and transparency in ethical AI-powered enterprise solutions."
Good luck to both companies!
If you're looking for some business development connections, for meetsynthia.ai, you can reach out to CEO & Founder, Drew Rayman:
Drew Rayman
For Squirro, talk with CEO Dr Dorian:
Dorian Selz
And of course, Chief Product Officer & Head of Corporate Development, David Hannibal:
