Artificial intelligence startup Bonsai AI Inc. has just landed $7.6 million in a Series A funding round as it tries to commercialize the open-source machine learning library TensorFlow.

The company is hoping to simplify Tensorflow for enterprises that want to build their own AI models and incorporate them into their businesses. Microsoft Ventures and existing investor NEA co-led the round, which also saw participation from ABB Technology Ventures, Samsung NEXT and Siemens.

As well as the funding, Bonsai said it’s kicking off an early access program for companies that want to build and deploy AI models with the Bonsai platform, which is targeted at developers. At present the company’s platform is focused on AI for uses in robotics, supply chains for manufacturing and other industrial settings. It works by automating the management of machine learning libraries and algorithms, so that enterprises can program AI models to improve system control and real-time decision making, Bonsai said.

It’s interesting that Microsoft Corp. led the round, given that Tensorflow was originally developed by its arch rival Google Inc. prior to being open-sourced in 2015. Tensorflow is an open source software library for machine learning across a range of tasks, and was first built by the Google Brain research team for systems capable of building and training neural networks to detect and decipher patterns and correlations, analogous to the learning and reasoning which humans use.

Still, despite having its own AI projects on the go, Microsoft clearly believes it can leverage Google’s project for its own ends. “Microsoft aims to democratize AI for all — Bonsai is executing on this vision by abstracting away the complexity of machine learning tools, enabling developers and enterprises to more efficiently program intelligence,” Microsoft Ventures Vice President Nagraj Kashyap said in a statement. “Their vision and focus make Bonsai a great addition to our AI Fund. Bonsai has the technology and team to drive positive societal and business impact, helping people and machines work better together.”

It’s still early days for Bonsai, but analysts agree with Microsoft that the company’s platform is very promising at a time when AI and machine learning technologies are still in their infancy, said James Governor, founder of the developer-focused analyst firm RedMonk.

“Across industries, enterprises are evaluating machine and reinforcement learning, as well as digital twin initiatives, to support the programming of more intelligent product+services,” Governor said in a statement. “Bonsai’s Early Access Program is engaging with specific, targeted verticals to make it easier to program machine learning models, including simulations, so deep domain expertise is built in.”

Bonsai was founded back in 2014, and the latest round brings its total funding to $13.6 million.

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