Consensus, an AI-powered academic search engine for scientific research, has raised $11.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Union Square Ventures.
Perplexity’s lead investors Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman participated in this round, along with previous seed investors Kevin Carter, Draper Associates, Alumni Ventures, and Path Ventures.
What it does
The company is building an AI-powered search engine to make scientific research papers easier to find, consume, and access.
Users provide a prompt with a question to the AI, and then receive literature with answers relevant to their query. It also synthesizes insights across the literature and extracts information relevant to the specific studies found, such as sample size and population.
Boston-based Consensus will use the funds to expand its workforce, invest in growth experiments and accelerate product development.
“While we value research and evidence very much, we didn’t have the skills or attention to scrutinize the research ourselves. We wanted to apply our background in consumer technology to scientific research and make this amazing content more accessible and consumable, regardless of your background,” Consensus CEO Eric Olson said in a statement.
Market Snapshot
Another company leveraging AI to investigate scientific research is Dimensions, which provides linked research data and AI applications to accelerate research discovery.
Semantic Scholar provides a free, AI-based research tool for scientific literature that aims to help researchers extract meaning and identify connections between papers.
