Novus Holdings has announced a R55 million investment in Bytefuse, an innovative artificial intelligence (AI) company, to enhance its capabilities to deliver enterprise scale AI solutions.
Having observed Bytefuse’s success in enhancing Maskew Miller Learning’s (MML) educational services through advanced AI solutions, Novus decided to acquire a strategic shareholding in Bytefuse.
“AI is at the forefront of significant change in our society, and our work with MML demonstrates its potential to create significant value in education,” said Greg Newman, Chief Executive Officer at Bytefuse. “This investment from Novus Holdings will enable us to scale our solutions and bring AI-driven innovation to more sectors. We believe that by leveraging our solutions, businesses can not only achieve unparalleled efficiency and effectiveness but also deliver products and services that were not previously possible.”
In South Africa, MML’s customised tutoring application Maski, driven by AI, will support students unable to access private education support. Research has shown that one-on-one tutoring, which MML’s AI tutor will seek to emulate, can potentially improve student outcomes by an average of two grades. This underscores the importance of Bytefuse’s work with MML, where AI is not just a tool but a transformative force enhancing educational experiences and outcomes.
Andre van der Veen, CEO of Novus Holdings, added, “There’s a lot of noise about AI in the market at the moment. And most of that noise is centered on these very large models – OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and others – and companies are considering their use of this transformative technology. Essentially any company has two choices. It can either build its own skills, or it can outsource these skills and bring in a partner to develop solutions. To do it well and build transformative solutions, you will need the top AI skills in the country, and we don’t think many companies on their own have the understanding to recruit and maintain them at the required level. AI is not data science and often companies see these skills as interchangeable, which they are not.”
Bytefuse strategically positioned itself in the AI market by assembling a team of top AI specialists with over 35 years of experience in the field, led by Prof. Etienne Barnard. Etienne studied and received his Phd in Artificial Intelligence at Carnegie Mellon University where some of the leading thinkers in AI were lecturing and working at the time.
“Etienne’s 35 years of experience means he understands the building blocks of AI. When issues arise, he can address them at a fundamental level. The team we started assembling in 2020 has been vetted and established by Etienne. The fruits are now starting to be harvested,” added Van der Veen.
The company’s long-term vision and preparedness, starting its journey four years ago, well before the recent AI hype cycle, has given it a head start in developing robust AI solutions.
“To be scalable and commercially viable, the output from a model needs to be accurate with a high degree of certainty. Because we have seen that these models understandably have a probability of giving the wrong answer, we’ve developed tools and training techniques over the last four years that reduce the uncertainty, making the outputs more reliable.We don’t think many companies on their own have the ability to deal with and manage these risks and implementation challenges.”
The company’s approach involves using open source AI models, “These models are typically smaller and more cost effective to host. We’re finding that by training them on a company’s proprietary data and leveraging the right context, we’re able to improve the quality of results to the point where they outperform general off-the-shelf implementations. By using smaller models, we’re able to offer cost-effective hosting within the client organizations ensuring data privacy and security,” Newman said.
“Our knowledge and experience of building and deploying these models at scale is what allows us to offer enterprises viable solutions while protecting their data.“
The strategic investment from Novus Holdings marks a pivotal moment in Bytefuse’s journey to deliver enterprise scale AI integration. CEO of Alphawave, Frans Meyer, concluded, “We are incredibly pleased to have incubated Bytefuse from its inception, and to receive this substantial investment. At Alphawave, we take great care in selecting and nurturing top talent, incubating and developing deep technology while looking at commercialisation and timing with meticulous attention. Our focus on carefully monitoring the commercial evolution of new opportunities within emerging sectors has been pivotal to this success. This consistent strategic approach has allowed us to build a robust portfolio, with 17 companies now under our umbrella, driving innovation and excellence from South Africa, particularly in the Stellenbosch area. We are excited about the future and the potential of Bytefuse to transform industries with AI.”
