Irish start-up Zerve has secured $3.8 million in pre-seed funding to bolster its research and development capabilities and expand its staff. Founded in 2021 by Phily Hayes, Jason Hillary, and Greg Michaelson, the company has developed a platform that facilitates collaboration among data science and AI development teams. This cloud-based serverless environment enhances live collaboration and the creation of stable production code.

The goal of the platform is to allow data scientists to work together simultaneously, promoting exploratory data analysis and the development of production-quality code. Zerve’s co-founder, Mr. Hayes, described the company’s architectural vision as one that breaks down silos between data science and AI development teams, allowing for seamless collaboration. The funding from the pre-seed round provides Zerve with the opportunity to realize and capitalize on its vision.

Elkstone Ventures led the pre-seed round, with contributions from angel investors including Algolia CTO Sean Mullaney and former DataRobot EVP of engineering Rob Hickey. Niall McEvoy, partner at Elkstone Ventures, praised Zerve’s ambition to bridge the gap between data science and AI development, emphasizing the potential for its technology to harness the power of these fields. Zerve has also been selected as one of the 10 European start-ups for the Intel Ignite Accelerator program, which is tailored for deep-tech companies.

Mr. Hayes identified fragmented tools available to data scientists as a productivity hindrance in sharing code and results with colleagues. He hinted at the need for a unified platform like Zerve’s to address this issue, positioning it as an ideal solution for streamlining collaboration between teams working on complex projects involving data science and AI development. With this new funding in place, Zerve is poised to continue building out its platform while expanding its team over