Elevation leads Singapore AI startup’s $4.2m series A raise

Polymerize, a Singapore-based AI startup, has raised US$4.2 million in a series A funding round led by emerging tech-focused VC firm Elevation Capital.

Polymerize co-founders Kunal Sandeep (left) and Abhijit Salvekar / Photo credit: Polymerize

The round also saw InfoEdge Ventures double down on their investment, having participated in Polymerize’s US$590,000 seed round in October 2020.

Polymerize has customers in Japan, Singapore, and India, and it is currently focused on companies in the automotive, adhesives, paints and coatings, specialty chemicals, and packaging sectors.

Founded in 2020 by Kunal Sandeep and Abhijit Salvekar, Polymerize is a SaaS platform for R&D teams in chemical companies. It aims to shorten development time by up to 50% and achieve R&D cost savings of up to 40%, generating new formulations with better outcomes.

It does this by enabling R&D teams in different geographies to effectively collaborate and manage experiment data, design new experiments, and get AI-based recommendations for new formulations or alternative ingredients.

The new funds will be spent on ramping up hiring and expanding the firm’s geographical footprint.

“Both Kunal and I were struck by the inefficiencies in R&D for materials formulation. Not only are the current methods inefficient and don’t leverage data from previous iterations of experiments, they also run the risk of missing out on the formulation of materials with unique properties,” said Salvekar.

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