In May, word leaked that Google Inc. has set up a venture capital fund run by engineers rather than professional investors and focused exclusively on backing artificial intelligence startups. The existence of the fund received official confirmation today after it was named as the lead contributor to a $10.5 million round into Seattle’s Algorithmia Inc.

The four-year-old startup is on a mission to ease the deployment and use of AI models. To that end, it offers two platforms aimed at reducing the massive amounts of manual work normally involved in the task.

The first is a marketplace through which researchers and developers can share their algorithms without the logistics of the delivery posing an obstacle. On the provider’s side, Algorithmia offers analytics features for monitoring model usage along with a monetization option geared towards submitters that wish to sell their algorithms on a commercial basis. These capabilities are joined by programming interface that enables buyers to embed solutions from the marketplace into their applications. Algorithmia runs models in the cloud to spare users the trouble of operating them on their own. 

Codex, the startup’s second product, offers a similar feature set for companies looking to better manage their internally developed AI assets. The platform can automate many of the tasks involved in running algorithms on a large scale and makes them easily accessible for an organization’s application developers. Moreover, the fact that everything is centralized allows administrators to keep a close eye on activity.

Diego Oppenheimer, Algorithmia’s chief executive officer, told TechCrunch that the two offerings are used by organizations in key sectors such as telecommunications, finance and defense. The marketplace alone features more than 3,500 algorithms.

Today’s funding is intended to help Algorithmia widen adoption even further. Besides Google, the round saw the participation of Madrona Venture Group, Rakuten Ventures, Osage University Partners and Work-Bench. Oppenheimer said that he plans to grow his team’s headcount to about 23 by the end of the year.

He added that he has turned down multiple acquisition offers so far to pursue an independent roadmap, which may provide a clue as Google’s plans for the new AI fund. The fact that Algorithmia is apparently committed to a long-term growth plan would suggest the search giant is taking a strategic approach rather than merely aiming for the kind of financial returns that a quick exit could provide. This would mean it’s going down the same road as Microsoft Corp., IBM Corp. and the other tech giants that are actively investing in AI. 

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