A young Romanian woman who lives in the U.S. has recently secured $3.75 million in venture capital funding for her AI startup. The funding round was led by Gradient, Google’s investment fund focused on AI technologies.
Ana-Maria Constantin, a 31-year-old with a background in astrophysics and computer science, co-founded Cascade AI with Pulak Goyal in the U.S. two years ago. The company announced that the seed investment was led by Gradient, with participation from Myriad Venture Partners and Success Venture Partners. In the past two years, the startup led by Ana-Maria Constantin thus reaches total investments of 5.4 million dollars.
AI company Cascade has launched a tool that uses artificial intelligence technology to help HR teams at large companies better manage the often complex benefits and health insurance packages for employees. Also, the AI assistant built by the startup of the Romanian entrepreneur helps employees to know and use more easily the health insurance offered by the companies they work for.
Ana-Maria Constantin was an Olympic student in physics and left Romania after finishing high school to go to college at Harvard. She has dual citizenship, having recently also obtained American citizenship.
“I left Romania immediately after the twelfth grade, so I have no work experience in Romania, all my years in Romania were focused on school, the Olympics and physics competitions. I don’t have details about what it’s like to start a company in Romania, but there are success stories. UiPath is an amazing company. The mindset of successful entrepreneurs that I’ve met is that they are people who don’t get discouraged by obstacles and see obstacles as opportunities and try to find a way to make their dreams and ideas come true,” said the CEO of Cascade AI, Ana-Maria Constantin, for StartupCafe.ro.