AntWorks garners Innovator of the Year for Technology at SBR Management Excellence Awards 2019

The company created the first Integrated Automation Platform (IAP), powered by fractal science.

AntWorks^TM’ founders Asheesh Mehra and Govind Sandhu were motivated by the need to enhance business processes and operational efficiencies through AntWorks’ IAP, which could extract and read all types of data. This idea was based on the recognition that data is the most important element in automation. However, access to unstructured data and images presented a problem, and a more innovative approach was needed for data ingestion and transport.

To overcome this challenge, Mehra and Sandhu invented an alternative to the traditional optical character recognition (OCR) method and called it cognitive machine reading (CMR). AntWork’s platform, ANTstein^TM SQUARE, uses CMR to read all types of data so that robotic process automation (RPA), machine learning, and AI could be integrated to deliver end-to-end straight-through process.

The AntWorks co-founders realised there was a real need to look at the automation industry in a new way—moving from simply automating discrete tasks to automating a business process from end-to-end. Through ANTstein SQUARE, customers have a one-stop, end-to-end solution that facilitates data curation and building, as well as management and deployment of a digital workforce that maximises the use of AI.

With CMR, reading and processing unstructured, structured, inferred, and image data (whether printed or handwritten) becomes an easy and efficient task. The technology also performs natural language modelling, processing, and generation. Therefore, entire business processes can be automated without human assistance, which reduces human error and allows employees to focus on creative and strategic work. Furthermore, CMR helps companies generate actionable business insights. The digitised data is enriched to achieve a recall rate of 75%–80% and a near-perfect precision rate.

Under his leadership, AntWorks has obtained series A funding worth USD$15 million from SBI Investment Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of SBI Holdings Inc. This investment supports AntWorks’ growth plans for AI and enterprise RPA, whilst also boosting R&D, marketing, and sales efforts as the organisation strengthens its foothold in new markets.

In addition to the Singapore headquarters, AntWorks has operations across four continents with presence in Australia, Canada, Dubai, France, India, Japan, Philippines, UK and the US. The Company’s presence in Europe is also expected to grow in the upcoming year.

For a four-year-old company, AntWorks has gone through impressive expansion, bringing its original 58-person team to more than 500 employees in various parts of the world.

“I am incredibly honoured to have been named Singapore Business Review’s Innovator of the Year,” said Asheesh Mehra, AntWorks Co-Founder and Group CEO.

 “This award belongs not only to me but also to my co-founder Govind Sandhu and the Ant colony. Four years ago, we set out with a vision to disrupt the RPA industry and push the boundaries of this technology. We looked at the marketplace and saw there was a gap between what enterprises were trying to achieve with their automation journey and the technology offerings available to realise their goals. We solved that challenge with the launch of the industry’s first intelligent IAP, where data curation, RPA and machine learning and artificial intelligence work together to help forward thinking companies achieve automation nirvana—scalable, straight-through processing,” he added.

Industry experts have taken note of AntWork’s solution providing very favourable feedback.

Mike Smart, Senior Analyst at NelsonHall, acknowledged AntWorks’ capabilities in “understanding contextual information from multiple types of unstructured documents in text or handwritten form with a high level of accuracy. AntWorks is well-worth evaluation by major organisations with high volume industry-specific or back office processes, and those who have an outstanding major RPA roll-out to conduct at scale, and are becoming frustrated at their level of bot productivity.”

Anand S, Vice President of TechVision at Frost and Sullivan, praised AntWorks’ “unique proposition around clean data and business process driven approach to automation, backed by its superior ability to effectively automate complex processes at scale with the combination of data curation and digital workforce management.”
Meanwhile, Swapnil Bhatnagar, Research Director of Avasant, said that AntWorks has taken “a refreshing approach” in solving the challenge of “accurate data recognition and extraction [to drive the] success of enterprise or industry-specific process automation initiatives... [The] ANTstein SQUARE platform has the key capability to incorporate multiple point bots for business-critical processes that enterprises can deploy rapidly.”

The Singapore Business Review Management Excellence Awards was held on 26 November 2019 at the Conrad Centennial Singapore.

The 2019 winners were judged by a panel consisting of Henry Tan, Managing Director at NEXIA TS; David Chew, Executive Director, Risk Advisory at Deloitte Southeast Asia; Lim Wei Wei, Partner and Practice Leader, Governance and Risk at Baker Tilly TFW; Yang Eu Jin, Partner and Co-Head of Capital Markets Practice at RHTLaw Taylor Wessing LLP; and Pardeep Singh Khosa, Director at Davinder Singh Chambers LLC.

If you would like to join the 2020 awards and be awarded as one of the most outstanding management executives of Singapore, please email Julie Anne Nuñez at [email protected]