Former navy colonel raises $1.45m for Singapore’s take on Palantir

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The ranks of former military-men-turned-startuppers have continued to swell in Singapore. I once covered Courex, a logistics startup founded by an ex-army officer. I then wrote about CoAssets, a crowdfunding company that made a high-profile hire in former-chief artillery officer Lawrence Lim.

Turns out there’s more in the woodwork. Sense Infosys, a three-year-old company founded by ex-navy colonel Stephen Chow, has announced a series-A fundraise of US$1.45 million.

The company calls itself a “local maritime and security data analytics startup.” What this means is that it provides data science consultancy services, as well as access to Klaver, its proprietary tech that purportedly aggregates data from sensors everywhere to “establish a coherent knowledge base.”

The data is then transformed into “actionable insights.” The company also provides “real-time targeting intelligence” (not sure what that means) by drawing connections between data points, recognizing patterns, and detecting anomalies. The startup focuses on serving governments, as well as the defence, maritime, and oil and gas industries.

It’s a little bit like Singapore’s version of Palantir, but Stephen tells me that while Palantir is still a services provider, Sense Infosys is moving towards “productization.”

Government-backed

The startup has been accredited by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, which means it gets a leg up in securing contracts from the government as well as Singapore-based corporations. It’s on track to exceed US$720,000 in revenue this year, with a clientele based entirely in the country for now.

It plans to “further penetrate the government analytics market. It is also positioning itself to undertake classified and sensitive information projects.” Some of these projects will involve maintaining “public order,” the press release says. (There’s also the obligatory mention of Smart Nation.)

Joining Stephen on the team is CTO Yong Kai Chin, who leads a team of data scientists and software engineers. He was formerly an engineer at DSO National Laboratories, a governmental defence R&D organization, and also at ST Electronics, a government-owned maker of electronics and communications systems.

Leading Sense Infosys’ series A round is Jason Venture, the investment arm of Singapore-listed marine and offshore system integrator Jason Marine Group, which had US$40.7 million in revenue in 2015. Jason Venture also invested in the startup’s previous round.

Cap Vista, the investment arm of the government’s Defense, Science, and Technology Agency, also joined the round.

Converted from US dollars. US$1 = S$1.38.

Update: Corrected the name of the startup which ex-artillery officer Lawrence Lim joined.