A Duke University spinout based on research by Lawrence Carin, professor of electrical and computer engineering, has received $10m of initial funding from Carrick Capital Partners.

Duke University secured $10m on Wednesday for Unicorn ML, a new machine learning spinout from investment firm Carrick Capital Partners.

The­ spinout will be based on research by Lawrence Carin, vice-provost for research and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke University’s Edmund Pratt School of Engineering, who will also become chief sc­­ientist. 

Carin’s research group has outlined an updated design for variational autoencoders, the component that attempts to replicate or create output based on data previously fed by the user. His team argues using a symmetric variational encoder design would yield more reliable results than current models.

The spinout aims to eventually serve the health, service and security industries by focusing on written, visual, vocal and aural machine learning applications. It will initially gather clients, capital and feedback to prepare a software-as-a-service offering to the artificial intelligence sector.

Marc McMorris, co-founder of Carrick, and Mike Salvino, operating partner at Carrick, will join the spinout’s board along with Carin.

Carin said: “Carrick has unique and extensive experience building built-for-purpose companies from the ground up.

“I have been extremely impressed by their knowledge of the process and their approach to building value. The resources, networks, market strategy and operational expertise Carrick brings to the table are tremendously valuable in building and ultimately growing and scaling this business.”

– This story was updated on September 25 2017 to include the spinout’s termporary name, Unicorn ML, as revealed by the Duke Chronicle.