Osage University Partners and a host of other existing shareholders returned to back a $30m series B round for New York University spinout Clarifai.

US-based deep learning technology producer Clarifai raised $30m in series B capital yesterday from investors including spinout-focused VC fund Osage University Partners (OUP), backed by more than 80 institutions.

Menlo Ventures led the round, while Qualcomm Ventures, the wireless technology developer’s corporate venturing arm, and venture capital firms Union Square Ventures and Lux Capital also participated. The round further included a range of unnamed investors.

Founded in 2013, Clarifai has created image and video recognition technology that relies on artificial intelligence (AI) to understand depicted concepts and, for example, extract a list of ingredients from a photograph of food. The platform is used to detect more than 1.2 billion concepts per month.

The cash, which lifts Clarifai’s total funding to nearly $41.3m, will help the company drive recruitment across its engineering, business and research teams. It will also accelerate new product releases.

OUP previously took part in a $10m series A round in May 2015, alongside New York University and Qualcomm Ventures, as well as GV and Nvidia Ventures, respective investment arms of conglomerate Alphabet and graphics processing units developer Nvidia.

The series A round was led by Union Square Ventures and also included Corazon Capital, LDV Capital and Lux Capital.

New York University, GV, Qualcomm Ventures, Nvidia Ventures, Corazon Capital and LDV Capital supplied $1.25m in a seed round in 2014.

Matt Zeiler, founder and chief executive of Clarifai, said: “Clarifai was built upon the belief that everyone should have the power to use artificial intelligence, regardless of their budget, infrastructure or skill level, in order to improve their products and our quality of life.

“As an independent company, we have the unique ability to move quickly and innovate at a more consistent and rapid pace, all while solely focusing on leveraging data for each partner’s specific business needs.

“This new funding enables us to supercharge our innovation and continue our mission to create an AI platform that makes powerful AI tools available to the masses.”