Truera Inc., a startup working to give enterprises better insight into how their artificial intelligence models make decisions, today said that it has closed a $12 million funding round led by Wing VC.

The investment comes just months after Truera launched from stealth mode. In all, the startup has raised more than $17 million to date. 

The challenge Redwood City, California-based Truera has set out to address is that it’s technically challenging to explain decisions brought by AI models. Modern neural networks are so complex that even the data scientists who created them can find it difficult to identify the factors behind a given decision. That’s an issue because when AI is applied to sensitive tasks, such as medical research or loan processing, companies need to verify that the results made by a model are correct.

Truera has developed a software platform that it says can help. The platform, which builds on six years of research conducted by the startup’s co-founders at Carnegie Mellon University, maps out the factors that contribute to an AI-made decision and the extent to which each influences the result. A company with an AI that estimates package delivery times could use the software to check if the model sufficiently accounts for traffic conditions when calculating arrival times.

AI explainability can be important in other situations as well. Companies such as banks, for example, may at times be required to show regulators how an AI made a certain important decision.   

According to Truera, its platform also eases additional aspects of machine learning projects. Data scientists have access to a feature that enables them to compare multiple AI models with one another to determine the one most suitable for the task at hand. Then, after selecting and deploying a model, they can use Truera’s platform to keep an eye out for drops in the neural network’s accuracy that may emerge over time.

AI explainability appears to be a growing priority among the world’s biggest enterprises. The startup divulged on occasion of the funding today that it’s already working with multiple Fortune 100 companies to help them build better models. “Truera is hitting the market at just the right time,” commented Truera Chief Executive Officer Will Uppington. “We are seeing strong demand for our model intelligence solutions, and this funding will help us accelerate recruiting, product development, and sales and marketing efforts.”

Besides Wing VC, the startup’s latest round saw the participation of Greylock, which led its previous raise. The two firms were joined by several other institutional backers including Conversion Capital, Data Community Fund, B Capital Group’s Ascent Fund and Harpoon Ventures. 

Image: Truera