Key Takeaways

• Faculty has an estimated annual revenue of $6 million and has raised a total of $56.6 million from different funding rounds with the latest funding being a $42.5 million growth funding round in 2021 from the Apax Digital Fund (ADF).
• Faculty offers an industry-leading AI that specializes in the designing, developing, and implementation of custom AI systems that can be used to "deliver performance that sets its clients apart, when it matters most, and through a partnership that makes the client stronger."
• The company targets major organizations across different sectors including healthcare & lifesciences, customer & retail, government & public services, and energy transition & environment.

Introduction

Overview of Faculty AI

 

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• Headquartered in London, Faculty was founded in 2014. 

• The company is located at Level 6, 160 Old Street, London, EC1V 9BW.
• With about 279 employees, Faculty has an estimated annual revenue of $6 million and has raised a total of $56.6 million from different funding rounds with the latest funding being a $42.5 million growth funding round in 2021 from the Apax Digital Fund (ADF).

Products and Services

• Faculty's product offering is centered on bringing the benefits of AI to everyone.
• Frontier is the company's decision intelligence software that is designed to deliver outlier performance by using the "latest science to unpick the cause and effect relationships in your business so that you can base decisions on true understanding."

Value Proposition

• According to the company, they offer an industry-leading AI that specializes in the designing, developing, and implementation of custom AI systems that can be used to "deliver performance that sets its clients apart, when it matters most, and through a partnership that makes the client stronger."

Target Market

• Faculty targets major organizations across different sectors including healthcare & lifesciences, customer & retail, government & public services, and energy transition & environment.

Who Their Customers are

• Faculty's customers include some of the biggest organizations including the UK government, NHS, BBC, British Airways, Deloitte, and many more as can be seen below.

 

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How They Acquire Customers

• While the company has not explicitly stated how they acquire customers, an analysis of the company's marketing strategy, which focuses on leveraging digital channels such as social media and the company's website, shows that Faculty acquires customers through digital marketing strategies.
• While the company has been pointed out by media outlets as being favored by government agencies based on its "links to Dominic Cummings, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's former chief adviser, and its work on the Brexit campaign in 2016," the CEO of the company — Marc Warner — said: "most of our work was in the private sector and that continues to be critically important for us as an organization. Over the last year, we’ve tried to step up and do our bit wherever we could for the public sector".
• In an interview in 2021, Warner also remarked that the company witnessed sustained strong growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. They added 52 new customers during this period including the "National Crime Agency, Red Bull, Virgin Media, Moonpig, and a two-year partnership with NHS England and NHS Improvement to help them to build forecasting capabilities and improve data-driven decision-making."

How They Win Contracts

• In 2020, The Guardian reported that Faculty has won a total of 13 government contracts since early 2018 amounting to £3 million. 
• The company had also hinted that they had completed more than 30 projects with public bodies since 2016.
• However, the company, through different high profile personnel has refuted these points and has insisted that they have won contracts through due processes.
• As reported by The Guardian, the company hinted that they "had delivered work for hundreds of clients in more than a dozen countries and that the majority of its work was in the private sector. It said it had never received or benefited from any favoritism by Cummings or any other political figure. The firm also said the political persuasion of its clients was immaterial, and that it did not take political positions."
• The Guardian also reported that "a No 10 spokeswoman said all contracts awarded to Faculty followed proper procurement procedures."
• Furthermore, the CEO of the company was quoted saying: "all the contracts are on public record, we work very hard to go through the public procurement process. All of our work has been won very legitimately."

An Analysis of Their Marketing Initiatives

• Faculty's marketing strategy involves communicating the company's product and service offerings across multiple digital sources such as the company's website and social media platforms to talk up its offerings
• Faculty leverages these channels to tell customers' stories and enlighten its audience on why they should choose Faculty. A couple of examples of such initiative is a YouTube video on the company's official account titled "How Faculty helped a major US fashion retailer drive millions in incremental profit" and another video titled "Uncover the true impact of your marketing with Faculty".
• Similarly, on the company's website, the company has a designated section "Customer Stories" where they provide insights into how they have worked for other clients and how effective their solution was.
• These initiatives identified above and many more summarize Faculty's marketing strategy.

Research Strategy