Oghma, an Irish AI project co-founded by Trinity College Dublin’s (TCD) Prof Stefano Sanvito, won a €500,000 investment prize after reaching the final round of the Stage Two pan-European spin-out competition in Berlin late last month.

The investment offer came from German venture capital fund Caesar, which specialises in funding deep-tech, green-tech, health-tech and fintech businesses.

Oghma has developed an AI platform for scientific research and development that processes unstructured and scattered data into a useable form with speed. It attempts to address knowledge gaps that unstructured data might pose to developers across the chemical, pharmaceutical, chip and manufacturing industries in hopes of improving modelling capabilities and reducing costs.

The project was co-founded by Sanvito, alongside experts Dr Luke Gilligan and Dr Matteo Cobelli. Sanvito, who has three decades of experience in materials modelling, electronic structure theory, quantum transport and machine learning for materials discovery, also leads the TCD’s Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices (CRANN) institute as its long-term director.

Oghma’s technology has been validated by major global companies, including chemical giant BASF and pharmaceutical process development company APC

Supported by Trinity's Technology Transfer Office, the project is nearing the end of a Commercialisation Fund award from Enterprise Ireland and is set to spin out into a commercial business.

“At Oghma, our mission is to unlock fragmented R&D data to construct predictive models. By making this data accessible, we will shorten development times, reduce R&D costs and enable the discovery and optimisation of next-generation material and chemical solutions,” Sanvito said.

The project aims to help “drive the next generation of data-driven industrial innovation across the materials, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and semiconductor sectors, where AI and machine learning can transform how companies research, develop and bring new technologies to market”, according to Sanvito.

Stage Two is a Berlin-based spin-out competition for companies emerging from European universities. Oghma competed for funding in a pitching contest against more than 50 other research-based spin-outs in the region. Sanvito was also appointed to the new Irish National Science Advice Forum earlier this year.

For more information about Oghma, please visit www.oghma.ie

For more information about Caesar, please visit www.caesar.vc