digiLab
digiLab is a deep tech company which provides decision confidence in safety critical industries using its proprietary AI/ML platform twinLab, and helps to upskill the next-generation of AI/ML talent with the digiLab Academy.
Founded as a spin out from the University of Exeter Data Centric Engineering team, with a mission to accelerate the transition to net zero, the company provides solutions to the Energy, Aerospace & Water industries.
These first-of-a-kind engagements solve complex problems at the intersection of science and engineering. Early use cases include; Tritium desorption in Fusion reactor design, an Air Traffic Control simulation proof of concept , optimised radioactivity sampling for fission reactor decommissioning, and optimising chemical dosage for clean water, while reducing model risk.
IP and expertise is developed and replicated as solutions within an industry vertical based on our highly scalable technology stack, twinLab, which is built on proprietary Bayesian machine learning techniques and deep learning algorithms, including neural nets. digiLab also has advanced capability in outlier detection methods.
The business is growing rapidly, backed by Oxford Technology Management, having completed pre-seed and seed funding rounds. digiLab is participating in the global CDL Accelerator programme run in the UK by SAID Business School at the University of Oxford.
The digiLab Academy is an online ML/AI skills development programme, helping beginners and beyond break into this exciting field and then accelerate their careers. By partnering with industry and leveraging the twinLab platform, it will help to address the significant skills gap in applying AI/ML techniques to tackling sustainability challenges. The first online B2C course, “AI in the Wild: Foundations in Machine Learning”, is now live.
digiLab is a founder led business scaling a team that combines deep data science and software engineering with commercial acumen and industry experience. The business operates on a four day week, growing a supportive and collaborative team culture with strong sustainability credentials.
2021
Start Date
Exeter
Location
21
Employees
£0
Grants
£1.15m
Equity
The Journey
“I lead the Data-Centric Engineering group at the University of Exeter, and lots of engineering companies were contacting us to ask if we could help them solve key problems by exploiting their underutilised data. These were often important, impactful problems that I knew could be addressed with state-of-the-art machine learning approaches. However, they offered nothing new from a purely academic perspective, so we were unable to collaborate through the traditional university/industry model.
So, working with Dr Anhad Sandhu, now Co-founder & CEO of digiLab, who was then a member of my academic group, we decided to join forces in creating a spin-out to work with these companies, to create the real-world transformative impact that we know machine learning can deliver.
’This is really exciting. Our funding is secured, so now we are building our team. We will be one of few high-end, supercharged tech companies based in Devon, though we expect a remote-working element too, of course. But for me, as a keen surfer, this is the ideal world that also offers a great work and family-life balance. We will be advertising specific roles, but we’re also interested to hear from enthusiastic data scientists who are full of ideas and passionate about problem-solving. We plan to build an agile and diverse team that gives people real opportunity. That’s how I built my academic research group – if someone flourishes, they’ll be given room to run”
Professor Tim Dodwell is Co-founder & CTO of digiLab, Professor in Applied Mathematics at the University of Exeter, and a Turing AI Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute in London, the UK’s national data science institute.
‘’The rigorous market validation I conducted during ICURe convinced us that engineering companies in particular would welcome the opportunity for digiLab to engage with them to exploit their underutilised data.
Many engineering, utility or power companies have already spent a lot of money and other resources collecting data about their processes. They’ve put in that early effort, and they’ve been doing it for years. So they’ve got all this warehoused data lying dormant and making no real impact on their business. But this data is gold, if only they knew how to mine it effectively. And that’s why they come to us: we can solve Big Data for industry’’
Dr Anhad Sandhu is Co-founder & CEO of digiLab.
Following a pre-seed round and spin out from the University of Exeter in December 2021, digiLab has subsequently completed £1m of funding through a seed round in October 2022
The company’s first-of-a-kind solutions are being developed in financial year 2022-23 with early replication clients being targeted for signature in 2023
The technology roadmap releases incremental capability through 2023-24
From this platform digiLab can mature and scale SaaS based license revenues from 2024 onwards
A series A funding round is planned for later in 2024 to start rapidly scaling license sales across new geographies and industries based on a scaled-up business operation
The exit plan aims to form strategic alliances with technology leaders such as Dassault Systemes, Ansys, IBM, and Nvidia to enable a strategic acquisition once our technology has matured.
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What companies had to say about the Innovate UK ICURe programme?
The support we've received from the ICURe programme has been brilliant! It has helped us bring our machine learning solutions to market and help our customers seize the value locked in their data.
Dr Anhad Sandhu
Co-Founder & CEO
Future Goals
Our first-of-a-kind solutions are being developed 2022-23 with early replication clients being targeted for signature in 2023. digiLab has ambitious growth plans with a target of £2.5M revenue and 49 employees by the end of FY March 2024, up from an expected £536k of revenue and 21 employees by end of FY March 2023.