Eppo Secures Fresh Funding to Expand Its App, Website, and AI Experimentation Ventures

The landscape of Artificial Intelligence is bustling with the introduction of numerous models, pushing firms to quickly integrate them to remain in the fray. A remarkable projection by Searce, a tech consultancy, reveals that approximately 10% of corporations are poised to invest a staggering $25 million in AI ventures this calendar year.

Despite hefty investments in AI, gauging the profitability remains a puzzle for many. A report by Gartner highlights that half of the AI front-runners struggle with articulating or computing the financial impact of AI endeavors.

Chetan Sharma, an ex-data scientist at Airbnb and now a co-founder of Eppo, a platform for experimenting with AI models, argues that with the proper tools, understanding AI’s Return on Investment (ROI) shouldn’t be difficult. Eppo not only allows its users to assess and tailor AI models for particular applications but also offers a comprehensive A/B testing tool for various digital platforms.

“The advent of weekly AI model launches and multimillion-dollar investments therein makes A/B testing an economically viable method to gauge their utility without financial drain,” Sharma conveyed to TechCrunch. “Eppo empowers businesses to discern the genuinely valuable models, facilitating wiser, cost-effective choices amid a backdrop of swift technological evolution and inflating expenses.”

Eppo finds itself in competition with several A/B testing and experimentation startups like Split, Statsig, and Optimizely, as well as tech behemoths such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, all of which are expanding their repertoire of model refinement and assessment tools.

Yet according to Sharma, Eppo distinguishes itself with its unique “contextual bandit” system. This system automatically recognizes new variations of a client’s web platforms, apps, or AI models and intelligently manages the assessment of these variants by progressively increasing the traffic to them.

Sharma elaborates that “By leveraging experimentation as a strategy, companies can quickly dismiss ineffective ideas and focus resources on successful ventures, promoting quicker expansion and growth. Eppo’s live ‘online-eval’ testing approach provides concrete data on whether top-tier models are indeed enhancing performance metrics.”

Since its 2022 launch from stealth mode, Eppo has attracted “several hundred” corporate clients, including names like Twitch, SurveyMonkey, DraftKings, Coinbase, Descript, and Perplexity, according to Sharma. As reported to TechCrunch by Alexis Weill, head of data at Perplexity, Eppo has significantly amplified their capacity to run multiple experiments simultaneously.

Investor enthusiasm is evident, with Eppo recently securing a $28 million Series B funding round. This round was spearheaded by Innovation Endeavors, with contributions from Icon Ventures, Amplify Partners, and Menlo Ventures. Sharma notes that the influx of funds, raising Eppo’s valuation to $138 million post-money and overall funding to $47.5 million, will fuel Eppo’s marketing initiatives, beef up its AI experimentation tools, enhance its analytics services, and accelerate market penetration strategies.

Eppo, based in San Francisco, currently boasts a workforce of 45, aiming to expand to 65 by year-end.

“The imperative for rapid growth alongside the ascending prominence of AI fosters a culture of experimentation within firms,” Sharma remarks. “As gaps with legacy suppliers widen, the experimentation domain has largely opted for exhaustive in-house teams. However, with the current climate of employee turnover and layoffs, sustaining such teams is becoming untenable, pressing organizations to look towards Eppo as a substitute for their costly or abandoned internal projects.”