Veritone Inc. Chief Executive Chad Steelberg believes his artificial intelligence company’s recently announced partnership with Alteryx Inc. is a step towards making Orange County an AI powerhouse.
Costa Mesa-based Veritone (Nasdaq: VERI), whose market cap is now trading above $1 billion for the first time in three years, last week said it is integrating its advanced AI capabilities—involving the usage of video, images, audio and text—into Alteryx’s (NYSE: AYX) data analytics platform.
“This partnership with Veritone will enable our customers to quickly transform disparate, unstructured data into actionable intelligence and valuable AI-powered insights for quick business wins,” said Nitin Brahmankar, vice president, strategic partnerships at Alteryx.
Veritone, the creator of the aiWARE operating system for artificial intelligence, announced the partnership with Alteryx on Jan. 11.
1-2 Punch
Steelberg said the two companies are working together after entering the market at “two very different places” in terms of process automation and AI-machine learning.
“That both [companies] happen to be in Orange County is going to create a true 1-2 punch that will land Orange County on the map in terms of being a powerhouse for the AI future,” Steelberg told the Business Journal when the Alteryx arrangement was announced.
The software of Irvine-based Alteryx, whose market cap now runs about $8.1 billion, lets companies manipulate huge amounts of data to find insights for business decisions.
Veritone’s aiWARE operating system helps analyze unstructured public and private audio, video and text data for clients in a variety of markets, including media, entertainment, legal, compliance, energy and government to provide actionable intelligence in a searchable database.
Stock Rebound
Veritone’s stock has seen a rocky ride since its initial public offering in 2017, as the company worked to prove the relevance of its artificial intelligence. Its shares were trading under $2 for parts of 2020 as the pandemic ravaged world stock markets, well below its prior heights in 2017.
Veritone shares traded around $39 apiece last week, up about 38% since mid-December.
The company reported third-quarter aiWARE SaaS Solutions revenue climbed 43% to $3.4 million. It reported overall third-quarter sales rose 18% sequentially to $15.7 million; the company receives revenue from aiWARE and its advertising sales.
Steelberg sees the agreement with Alteryx as a validation for Veritone’s aiWARE from Orange County’s most highly valued public software company.
Alteryx reported third-quarter revenue of $129.7 million, up 25% year-over-year.
‘Strong Collaborators’
The Veritone chief executive said the two local companies are “working together as strong collaborators, similar to what you see up in Silicon Valley where companies like Intel, Microsoft and Google have created ecosystems of collaboration.”
Steelberg said the arrangement with Alteryx does not contain any “economic transfers” or incentives, and that he hopes to work with others in the area going forward.
“We’re working with a number of other companies here locally that are in the robotics space, etc., which are really exciting that are happening right here in your backyard,” according to Steelberg. “If you were to throw a rock from our headquarters to Alteryx to some of the other Tier 1 companies in the robotics space, we’re within a couple miles of each other.”
‘Actionable Intelligence’
Veritone provided some concrete examples of how Alteryx customers can benefit from the new arrangement:
• Insurance companies for in-depth claims analysis of call, image and video evidence to detect policy risk and fraud, leveraging behavioral patterns and transaction histories
• Retail banks and credit unions for using text analytics of customer communications for greater customer insight and the ability to offer relevant products and services, assess risk and improve customer experience across channels
• Healthcare providers for extraction of insight from image scan test results for a more complete view of patient health history
• Oil and gas companies for analyzing satellite video and images to make more informed exploration decisions for drilling and bidding
Veritone has offices in Denver, London, New York and San Diego, in addition to the Costa Mesa headquarters. The company was listing 26 open positions on its website as of Jan. 11, including sales, as well as strategic planning and operations director, with more than half of them in Costa Mesa.
