A British artificial intelligence (AI) start-up which helps companies make complex supply chains work more efficiently by reducing their reliance on email communications is raising millions of pounds to fund its expansion.

Sky News understands that DeepStream, which was founded in 2016 and counts the likes of the shipping giant Maersk among its customers, will this week announce that it has raised more than £5m in a funding round led by the venture capital firm Beringea.

The round, which includes money from Conviction VC, a London-based investor, will enable the more rapid rollout of DeepStream’s cloud-based procurement platform, which it claims frees up an average of two hours each day per procurement user when compared to email.

The company says it has more than 3500 clients who use it to improve communications with suppliers.

One recent estimate suggested that US-based businesses lose $600bn annually as a result of inaccurate or missing data when making procurement decisions.

DeepStream’s customers also include Britishvolt, the electric battery manufacturing start-up, with its clients spread across industries such as renewable energy, logistics, green steel, electric vehicles and construction.

Jack Macfarlane, DeepStream’s founder and chief executive, said: “For too long, procurement has been an opaque practice conducted on outdated technologies like email and ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning] systems.

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“We want to bring true visibility to the supply chain, so companies can analyse, compare, and understand the suppliers they use, because only with this kind of transparency can procurement become fully auditable and sustainable.”

Mr Macfarlane said DeepStream was seeing year-on-year customer growth of over 800%.

He said the company would use the new funding to double the size of its workforce and develop AI applications such as its supplier recommendations engine, which presents buyers with compatible suppliers based on criteria such as cost or efficiency.

Carrie Babcock, investment manager at Beringea and newly appointed to DeepStream board, comments, “We know supply chains are buckling, which necessitates greater adoption of technologies that can help drive efficiency gains… Customers we spoke to raved about DeepStream’s ease of use, flexibility, delivery and service.”

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